Throwback Thursday: Resisting full democracy in Hong Kong is 'spitting in the wind' - Lord Patten

For this week's Throwback Thursday we are turning the clock back to November 2013.

The following article, written by James Griffiths, looks at comments Lord Patten made in regards to full democracy - and its likelihood - in Hong Kong.

It seems like a relevant throwback, considering the events that have unfolded in Hong Kong in the past few months. 

Chris Patten, who oversaw as governor the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, told the Wall Street Journal that any efforts to resist full democracy in Hong Kong are 'spitting in the wind'. 

"The only thing [Hong Kong] doesn’t have is the right to elect its own government, and sooner or later it will have, because you can’t give people control over all the economic and social decisions in their lives but not allow them to determine who collects their rubbish or how their children should be educated or how their health service should be run," Lord Patten said. "Anybody who tries to resist that is, I think, spitting in the wind."

Cue Chinese state media outrage in 5... 4... 

As governor of Hong Kong from 1992-1997, Lord Patten infuriated the Chinese government by promoting democratic reforms in the then British Dependent Territory, these reforms were quickly rolled back when China took control of the city. As governor, Lord Patten presided over a steady rise in the living standards of Hong Kongers and the expansion of the city's social welfare system. 

"The UK has interests and responsibilities towards Hong Kong and I don’t think we should ever forget that," he told the WSJ.

Chinese state media threw a collective tantrum in September when British Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire penned an op-ed in the SCMP calling for universal suffrage ahead of the 2017 Hong Kong chief executive election.

// This article first appeared on That's PRD online on November 11, 2013. For more Throwback Thursdays click here.