“While we were allegedly taking part in a golden age of China, the head of the Chinese Communist Party was instructing party officials and government officials to engage in an intense struggle against all the things that we and other liberal democracies stand for: Rule of law, parliamentary democracy, universally valid human rights, historical inquiry, all those sorts of things.”
“at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.”
Chris Patten
“In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.”
Chris Patten
“There is a sort of exotic preposterousness about a lot of elections, the way arguments are made even cruder.”
Chris Patten
“[M]y anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Beijing, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.<!--According to video archives, Patten said "Pek...”
Chris Patten
“As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I ha...”
Chris Patten
