Patten: Protests Not Futile, But Violence Should End

The last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, said on Wednesday that the SAR's protesters should not be provoked into committing violence by "police violence", saying getting into fights won't serve much good for their fight for freedom and democracy.

In a video conference with the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club, Lord Patten was asked if protesters should just give up and accept that their pro-democracy movement is futile.

"No, certainly not. They shouldn't lose faith, heart and dignity... Where will the Chinese Communist Party be in 2047? I don't know, unless [President] Xi Jinping is gonna live forever. I doubt whether it'd be exactly the same then as it is today," he said.

He also said he disagrees with the idea from some demonstrators that they should force the US to drop Hong Kong's special trade status and hurt Beijing's interests, in what's been described as "mutual destruction".

"The idea that you can help your political cause by making things worse, I just think that's crazy. I want to see Hong Kong prosperous and free, continuing to have the same relationship with markets all around the world," Lord Patten said.

"But you can't deny the fact that if Beijing Communists continue to treat Hong Kong as though it's another Chinese city, the rest of the world would inevitably start to do the same and that would be a disaster."

Lord Patten also said the police watchdog's report last week on the protests simply polarised society further, rather than get Hong Kong back to the "normality of expressing views without being run off the streets". He stressed the SAR needs an independent and transparent inquiry into the unrest.

In his final policy address in 1996, Lord Patten had expressed worries that Hong Kong's autonomy would be given away "bit by bit by some people in Hong Kong". When asked if he thinks that's happening now, Lord Patten said "in a short, diplomatic answer", he could certainly see why people would arrive at that conclusion.

He also said he's extremely worried that it appears that Beijing is -- through the SAR government and others here -- running Hong Kong and making its decisions. He said Chief Executive Carrie Lam and others will have to live with their conscience.

The last Hong Kong governor also said that he thinks the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the central government's liaison office have "certainly" violated Article 22 of the Basic Law and intervened in local affairs, saying they're organs of Beijing.

He said their recent comments and denials that they're subject to the article reminded him of the Chinese saying, "The deer isn't a horse."