I’m talking about Patten. Here’s my theory. He comes here in ’92, failed politician, can’t even hold down a job as a member of parliament; his ego must be going crazy. He thinks, ‘‘I have to do something, I have to make my mark. The mansion and the private yacht and the gubernatorial Rolls-Royce aren’t doing it for me. I have to be The Man.’’’
Isabella was laughing.
‘What’s funny?’ Joe asked her, but he was smiling too.
‘Guber what?’ she said.
‘‘‘Gubernatorial’’. It means ‘‘of the government’’. A gift of office. Jesus. I thought your parents gave you guys an expensive education?’
‘Anyway…’ Joe said, encouraging Miles to continue.
‘Anyway, so Chris is sitting there in Government House watching TV, maybe he’s arguing with Lavender over the remote control, Whisky and Soda are licking their balls’ – Lavender was Patten’s wife, Whisky and Soda their dogs. Miles got a good laugh for this – ‘and he says to himself, ‘‘How can I really mess this thing up? How can I make the British government’s handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China the biggest political and diplomatic shitstorm of modern times? I know. I’ll introduce democracy. After ninety years of colonial rule in which none of my predecessors have given a monkey’s ass about the six million people who live here, I’m gonna make sure China gives them a vote.’’ ’
‘Haven’t we heard this before?’ I said.
‘I’m not finished.’ There was just enough time for us to order some food and wine before Miles started up again. ‘What’s always really riled me about that guy is the hypocrisy, you know? He’s presented himself as this Man of the People, a stand-up guy from the sole remaining civilized nation on the face of the earth, but you really think he wanted democracy for humanitarian reasons?’
‘Yes I do.’ The firmness of Joe’s interjection took us all by surprise. To be honest, I had assumed he wasn’t listening. ‘And not because he enjoyed making waves, not because he enjoyed thumbing his nose at Beijing, but because he was doing his job. Nobody is saying that Chris Patten is a saint, Miles. He has his vanities, he has his ego, we all do. But in this instance he was brave and true to his principles. In fact it amazes me that people still question what he tried to do. Making sure that the people of Hong Kong enjoy the same quality of life under the Chinese government that they’ve enjoyed under British rule for the past ninety-nine years wasn’t a particularly bold strategy. It was just common sense. It wasn’t just the right thing to do morally; it was the only thing to do, politically and economically. Imagine the alternative.’
Isabella did a comic beam of pride and grabbed Joe’s hand, muttering, ‘Join us after this break, when Joe Lennox tackles world poverty…’
‘Oh come on.’ Miles drained his vodka and tonic as if it were a glass of water. ‘I love you, man, but you’re so fucking naïve. Chris Patten is a politician. No politician ever did anything except for his own personal gain.’
‘Are all Americans this cynical?’ Isabella asked. ‘This deranged?’
‘Only the stupid ones,’ I replied, and Miles threw a chewed olive stone at me. Then Joe came back at him.
‘You know what, Miles?’ He lit a cigarette and pointed it like a dart across the table. ‘Ever since I’ve known you you’ve been delivering this same old monologue about Patten and the Brits and how we’re all in it for the money or the personal gain or whatever argument you’ve concocted to make yourself feel better about the compromises you make every day down at the American embassy. Well call me naïve, but I believe there is such a thing as a decent man and Patten is the closest thing you’re going to get to it in public life.’ The arrival of our starters did nothing to deflect Joe from the task he had set himself. Miles pretended to be enthralled by his grilled prawns, but all of us knew he was about to get pummelled. ‘It’s time I put you out of your misery. I don’t want to come off sounding like a PR man for Chris Patten, but pretty much all of the commitments made to the people of Hong Kong five years ago have been fulfilled by his administration. There are more teachers in schools, more doctors and nurses in hospitals, thousands of new beds for the elderly. When Patten got here in ’92 there were sixty-five thousand Cantonese living in slum housing. Now there are something like fifteen thousand. You should read the papers, Miles, it’s all in there. Crime is down, pollution is down, economic growth up. In fact the only thing that hasn’t changed is people like you bitching about Patten because he got in the way of you making a lot of money. I mean isn’t that the argument? Appeasement? Isn’t that the standard Sinologist line on China? Don’t upset the suits in Beijing. In the next twenty years they’ll be in charge of the second biggest economy in the world. We need them onside so we can build General Motors factories in Guangdong, investment banks in Shenzhen, sell Coca-Cola and cigarettes to the biggest market the world has ever known. What’s a few votes in Hong Kong or a guy getting his fingernails ripped out by the PLA if we can get rich in the process? Isn’t that the problem? Patten has given you a conscience.’
Joe gave this last word real spit and venom and all of us were a little taken aback. It wasn’t the first time that I had seen him really go at Miles for the lack of support towards Patten shown by Washington, but he had never done so in front of Isabella and it felt as though two or three tables were listening in. For a while we just picked at our food until the argument regained its momentum.
‘Spoken like a true patriot,’ Miles said. ‘Maybe you’re too good for freight forwarding, Joe. Ever thought about applying for a job with the Foreign Office?’
This was water off a duck’s back. ‘What are you trying to say, Miles?’ Joe said. ‘What’s that chip telling you on your shoulder?’
This was one of the reasons Miles liked Joe: because he took him on; because he bullied the bully. He was smart enough to pick apart his arguments and not be daunted by the fact that Miles’s age and experience vastly outweighed his own.
‘I’ll tell you what it’s telling me. It’s telling me that you’re confusing a lot of different issues.’ Things were a little calmer now and we were able to eat while Miles held forth. ‘Patten pissed off a lot of people in the business community, here and on both sides of the Atlantic. This is not just an American phenomenon, Joe, and you know it. Everybody wants to take advantage of the Chinese market – the British, the French, the Germans, the fuckin’ Eskimos – because, guess what, we’re all capitalists and that’s what capitalists do. Capitalism drove you here in your cab tonight. Capitalism is going to pay for your dinner. Christ, Hong Kong is the last outpost of the British Empire, an empire whose sole purpose was to spread capitalism around the globe. And having a governor of Hong Kong with no experience of the Orient parachuting in at the last minute trying to lecture a country of 1.3 billion people about democracy and human rights – a country, don’t forget, that could have had this colony shut down in a weekend at any point over the past hundred years – well, that isn’t the ideal way of doing business. If you want to promote democracy, the best way is to open up markets and engage with politically repressed countries at first hand so that they have the opportunity to see how Western societies operate. What you don’t do is lock the stable door after the horse has not only bolted, but found itself another stable, redecorated, and settled down with a really fuckin’ hot filly in a meaningful relationship.’ Joe shook his head but we were all laughing. ‘And to answer your accusation that my government didn’t have a conscience until Chris Patten came along, all I can say is last time I checked we weren’t the ones willingly handing over six million of our own citizens to a repressive communist regime twenty miles
