I found a booklet titled LETTERS TO HONG KONG that interrupted the cleaning job of my house. I remember that the booklet was taken from the Information Services Department ten years ago. I did not have time to read it or I was just too lazy to pick it up.

Did not take too long to finish the reading. I found Christopher Patten is'nt really a crook, though I do not know him. The letters leak how clever a man he is.

The last chapter

29-Jun-97

"What will you be feeling, Governor, as you leave Hong Kong in early hours of the morning on 1st July?"

If I've been asked that question once by journalist, I've been asked it a hundred times. But what will I be feelings

"Britannia" gracefully slips her moorings and heads through a forest of light for the dark skies and the open sea?

First, Lavender, Alice and I - who made our homes here for 5 years - will obviously be sad on a personal level to be leaving.

We've all enjoyed out time here, made new friends, encountered new experiences, learned new things.

I'll miss my urban expeditions, pottering around Hong Kong, poking through piles of second-hand watches on a kerb-side stall looking for a bargain, discovering a marvellous 19th century child's hat like a cat's face in a bric-a-brica shop up a side alley, finding a new bakers or ironmongers, admiring the almost eccentrically extravagant range of food stalls in one of our covered markets, enjoying the smell, and the sights and the energy of this great Chinese maritime city. It's sometimes thought rather politically incorrect for public officials to admit to having a good time. But I have to say that I've enjoyed being Governor. Hong Kong at its best is great fun - boisterous, noisy, lively, exciting.

So I'll be sorry to leave all that. But you have to look forward in life. Doors shut, others open. I'll certainly be wondering, "what next?" as we sail down the harbour.

At another level I'll be feeling cheerful - cheerful not about myself but about Hong Kong.

Someone wrote the other day that Britain has never left a place that it's helped to govern so fabulously rich or with such a rich fabric of civil society. I think that's unquestionably true. It's a great Chinese success story, written - to be fair - within a system of values and British institutions which have encouraged not throttled that success.

Don't forget there's nothing inevitable about what has happened. It wasn't widely predicted. 15 years ago, 10 years ago, even 5 years ago when I came, people were dipping their pens into a pot of gloom to write about Hong Kong. They predicted economic collapse, social polarisation, political turmoil.

Well, they were wrong.

So were those who told us with such chilling certainty in 1992 ans 1993 that we couldn't stand up for ourselves in the face of Chinese criticism without bringing everything crashing down. That had been, you'll recall, the main justification for a whole philosophy of dealing with China that never thought a principle was worth fighting for. Wrong again.

And Hong Kong will stay economically strong so long as we hold on to the policies and institutions that have made it so.

It would be regarded as odd, to say the least, in the financial markets of the world if Hong Kong was to abandon the free market approach which has drawn the applause of think tanks, international institutions and investors in favour of heavy- handed and cack-handed interventionism. I'm puzzled by those who seem to want welfare for business but not for people.

Now, as I'll never tire of arguing, it's Hong Kong's civil society which both provides the environment in which our economy thrives and which is itself, as that economy grows and prospers, partly the result of economy success.

What do I mean by civil society?

I mean a public service of highest calibre, led by men and women of integrity - professional, committed, politically neutral, meritocratic.

I mean a system of justice which makes certain that all are equal before the law, governors and governed. How fortunate we are to have layers of the courage and character of those who have led our BAR Association in recent years, and to have a lawyer of the distinction of Andrew Li to take over as Hong Kong's Chief Justice.

I mean political parties which channel and reflect the aspirations of Hong Kong's people in a usually moderate way.

What are some of the manifestations of this civil society?

A packed cathedral just before Christmas for the ordination of our new Catholic bishops. The moving and dignified crowd at the Tienanmen vigil, showing what was in their hearts. A police force which is regarded as being part of "us", not a representative of "them". Newspapers which, by and large - and with one or two dishonourable exceptions - still try to tell the story more or less as they see it. A community which faces the inevitable uncertainties of the hand-over with maturity and restraint.

Civil society, freedom, demonstrations, politics, arguments - they're not what Hong Kong is about, some still say. They are just time-bombs left behind by wily Brits to destroy Hong Kong. Leave aside for one moment why the wily Brits should want to destroy a city in which they have such a large continuing interest. Not much wiliness there, I shouldn't have thought. But leave that aside and go right to the heart of the demeaning, patronising, mule-headed nature of that argument. We are not talking about British time bombs, we are talking about the values, the hopes, the institutions of Chinese people. We are talking about Chinese men and women who insist that public services should not be distorted and corrupted. We are talking about Chinese Christians and Buddhists who worship and give witness. We are talking about Chinese politicians who argue that Hong Kong should not be just about the only example of a place where decolonisation has been accompanied by less democracy not more. We are talking about Chinese hearts and Chinese minds which find it odd that they should be expected to get the luggage of the Opium war out of the "Lost Property" office, but leave there more recently acquired bags.

We sometimes hear attacks on the bad-mouthing of Hong Kong. You know what the real and more damaging bad-mouthing of Hong Kong is - that small band of self-appointed good mouthers who tell the world that Hong Kongers don't care about democracy and civil liberties but only about making money. That is demeaning. It is untrue. It is deeply unfair. It damages Hong Kong and Hong Hong's reputation. anyway, on 4th June tens of thousands of you gave an eloquent answer to that nonsense.

So, uppermost in the mind of the 28th and last Governor- as I depart - will be a huge sense of pride and privilege in having been associated with this great city for 5 years of its life and mine. Hong Kong has changed me, and Hong Kong has changed while I've been here. Not mostly, because of me, mostly because of Hong Kong itself, dynamic, resourceful, a real place
not just a diplomatic puzzle.

The Governor from a far away land goes, and now Hong Kong people run Hong Kong. Not, I think, a very few Hong Kong people running a lot of Hong Kong people. No, Hong Kong running itself, everyone involved, everyone with a seat at the table. Maybe that's not exactly what everyone wants to see. But it's what will happen. Of that I have no doubt. No doubt because I know Hong Kong. And no doubt because I love Hong Kong. And I always will.

[ 本帖最後由 keibeast 於 2007-5-11 04:18 編輯 ]

thx for share