Patten Urges UK To Rethink China Ties

Hong Kong's last colonial governor, Chris Patten, has called on Britain's government to rethink its ties with China, citing the Communist Party's "secrecy and mendacity" over coronavirus and Beijing's attitude to Hong Kong.

In a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Patten says members of Hong Kong's civil society have told him that they fear this year's Legislative Council election could see mass disqualifications, or even be cancelled entirely.

"I want to make clear straight away that Britain and other countries should have no argument with China and the Chinese people," he wrote, adding that the world should thank Chinese medical staff who fought the virus and attempted to warn fellow citizens about it

"The issue is not our relationship with China. It is our relationship with the dangerous and immoral Communist Party. In Wuhan the Communist Party used the police to try to shut the doctors up. Totalitarian regimes always rely on secrecy and mendacity."

On Hong Kong, Patten referenced recent statements by Beijing's liaison office in the SAR and its Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. The two offices said they were not bound by Article 22 of the Basic Law, which restricts the roll of central government agencies in Hong Kong affairs.

These statements "are a flagrant breach of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law", Patten added. "They claim the right to call all the shots in Hong Kong thus destroying once and for all the promises that Hong Kong would have a high degree of local autonomy."

He referenced the arrest last week of 15 senior pro-democracy figures, and said members of Hong Kong's civil society were "concerned that the Chinese Communist Party are readying themselves to make mass disqualifications in the Legislative Council elections or worse still cancel those elections".

He concluded: "There is no 'golden age' in our relations with the Chinese Communist Party. We must work with China even while it suffers under a Communist dictatorship. But we should do so with our eyes open and while stripping away the mendacity and the cant."

China has consistently denied that it covered up the outbreak of the virus. Beijing and SAR officials have consistently rejected any "interference" in local affairs by overseas politicians, including Patten.