Chris Patten

Chris Patten is one of the nearly men of British politics. He has had a successful career, holding senior and important positions at critical times, throughout the world. Nevertheless, he has never seemed able to step into that top echelon even though many thought him capable and destined for the biggest roles. The UK’s answer to Al Gore, then.

In this book Patten applies himself to the ‘big’ questions everyone sees facing the world today – globalisation, economic collapse, water show more shortages, terrorism, drugs, climate change and others. Patten’s answers surprised me and revolve around two themes.

He firmly believes in the individual state (in whatever guise it may exist with liberal democracy by far his preferred choice) rather than larger, grander global organisations. In every way he believes the nation-state to be the best vehicle for working to the best interests of the people within the nation and for engaging and negotiating with all the other nation-states out there. He has worked in and seen fail far too many global organisations. So, no United Federation just yet.

His second theme is that the answers to all these problems already exist. We know what to do about all our ills, ranging from the application of new technologies through to just turning up and kicking ass. The key is to engender the collective will to go ahead and do these things. Without doubt some of these answers are not pretty and require us to do things we would rather not do. And how do we motivate ourselves to do the right thing when everyone else is partying on like it’s (still) 1999?

I expected this book to be a worthy, but stodgy, read, good for my health if not my taste buds. I was surprised to find Patten is very readable, funny (at least to my generation) and is able to explain and enlighten with an easy touch.

Barack Obama should have this on his nightstand. show less

http://nhw.livejournal.com/922824.html

Patten's book is a joy to read, just as Patten himself is usually a joy to listen to. Americans may well get a lot more out of it than Europeans. I may be wrong; part of the problem is that I know Patten well enough that I don't find any of the views he expresses here surprising, and in fact I already agree with most of them. He is eloquent and specific on how the British Conservative government screwed up its relationship with Europe (though his show more assertion that this only really happened after he was kicked out of Parliament in 1992 is at variance with my memory). He is brilliant on the need for the EU to develop a sensible approach to the rest of the world, especially the rising powers of India and China, but also in its own neighbourhood, by integrating the Balkans and Turkey through the prospect of membership. He is also brilliant on the US - writing as a passionate admirer of the American project, but one who is deeply dismayed by the Rumsfeld/Cheney domination of foreign policy. show less

From the last governor of Hong Kong, a controversial, astute, and thought-provoking analysis of the Asian phenomenon and the future of economic and political liberty in China and East Asia in the next century. For Chris Patten, Hong Kong was an extraordinary vantage point from which to view the growing economic and political power of China and East Asia over the last five years. As a free colony of the British Empire and the apex of an economic success story, it benefited from the show more development of the Chinese economy as surely as it contributed to that economic miracle. In a political move which marked the twilight years of the Empire, Hong Kong was finally handed back to Communist China in June 1997. East and West is Chris Patten's account of the current Asian phenomenon and an astute analysis of China as a rapidly growing world power.

The handover of Hong Kong challenged Britain's liberal conscience. With China looming in the background, it was impossible to build a platform of independence and political democracy as had been constructed in other colonial territories. East and West focuses on Chris Patten's key disputes with China over questions of democratic election, civil liberties, and Hong Kong's independence; but, more importantly, it examines the larger picture of the Asian value system. Can you have economic change without political change? Can democratic rule guarantee fair play between economic competitors?

There can be no doubt that Asia is a potentially formidable competitor to Europe and the United States, but Communist China lies at the heart of Asian development. In his intelligent and thought-provoking book, Chris Patten examines the implications of China's economic reforms and sets out the key political agendas for the future - not only for the East, but also for the West. show less

Written by Christopher Patten, the controversial last governor of Hong Kong under the British colonial rule, East and West is neither a book of memoir nor a hulking self-justification. Patten deftly draws on his experiences as Hong Kong Governor to formulate a number of arguments about Asia, about the conduct and implementation of economic policy, about the components of good governance, and about the relationship between political freedom and free economy.
Natives of Hong Kong would have to show more agree that Patten had struggled (wrestled with the Chinese leadership) in Beijing) to implement democratic institutions that would ensure Hong Kong's continued vitality and ability to prosper. On the verge of the 1997 handover which casted qualms for political and economic uncertainty in many Hong Kongers, Patten was in an awkward position where he was sandwiched between the Hong Kongers and the Chinese leadership. In several occasions (including this book), Patten stigmatizes the totalitarian system of the Chinese Communist system.

There had been incidences in which Hong Kongers accused Patten of betraying the colony and its 6 million occupants, of surrendering a free capitalist city to the ultimate Communist tyranny, with no negotiation and guarantee of human rights, freedom of speech, and autonomy. In the book, Patten draws on these sensitive issues and struggles to give his readers an up-close-and-personal look of the real Asia, not just Hong Kong, in all of its diversity.

Patten started penning the book back in 1996 and many of the events on which he has drawn in writing this book took place at a time when the Asian (Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong) economies seemed to be climbing like rockets. Stock markets triple-leaped and the number of millionaires tripled overnight. Patten regards what has happened in Asia, despite the recent setbacks, as on the whole exciting, unique, and vital for the region and the world.

Despite many Hong Kongers have dreaded the prospect of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty (which has proven to be worrisome in the recent rally against the passage of Article 23: security and subversion law), Patten sanguinely asserts that the die-hard Chinese leadership, while intending to demonstrate the feasibility of co-existence of Leninism and capitalism, will succeed in preserving a free market and liberal democracy in Hong Kong. So the horses will keep racing, and people will go on dancing, as promised by Deng Xiao-ping. The former colony will propser and remains intact for at least 50 years under the one-country-two-system policy.

Patten further asserts that what has worked for the West has already succeeded in the East, that what took place in Asia (especially in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) in the last thirty years was not disparate to the industrialization of Europe and the United States, only the Asian "little dragons" had evolved so much faster. Finally, Patten provides a global picture of the future, in which free markets and liberal politics sustain one another and attribute to economy prosperity. East and West delivers a personal portrait of Asia and its economic prospect, and how the East and the West come together as a whole in unifying the ideals of policy and economic conduct. show less