Chris Patten

[...] my anxiety is not that this community's autonomy would be usurped by Peking, but that it could be given away bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong.

— 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 have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before.

— Chris Patten

[About Hong Kong:] No other place has quite the same blend of East and West, ancient and modern, spectacular and humdrum.

— Chris Patten

It is not unusual for electorates to want contradictory things, and politicians often make promises accordingly.

— Chris Patten

Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.

— Chris Patten

Asians [...] put more emphasis on order, stability, hierarchy, family and self-discipline than Westerners do.

— Chris Patten