WITH AN eye to the history books, the Governor of Hong Kong yesterday delivered a defiant valedictory speech, and warned China that the world would be watching how it behaved after Britain left in nine months.
Making his last annual policy address to Hong Kong's legislative council, Mr Chris Patten challenged China to maintain the colony's political and economic freedoms, and attacked Beijing's plans to replace the council with a non elected body when it takes over on July 1st next year.
In a speech of 97 paragraphs, Mr Patten said that if the Chinese went ahead and took the "wrong" and "destabilising" step of appointing a provisional legislature in advance of the handover, it could expect legal challenges which he would do nothing to stop.
It was a curiously muted occasion. The mostly Chinese council members, elected under Mr Patten's recent pro democracy reforms, listened without interruption as he spoke for 100 minutes in front of a carved wooden royal crest - soon to be taken down - and remained silently in their seats as he left the chamber for the last time.
Despite his defiant words, the former chairman of the British Conservative Party who took over as Hong Kong's 28th and last British Governor in 1992, has limited ability to influence events in the 271 days before Hong Kong reverts to China.
Much of his speech was a litany of the achievements of his administration - a lower crime rate, higher investment, better schooling - stirring speculation about his ambitions to re enter British politics and make a future bid for the leadership of the Tory Party.
Mr Patten was appointed Governor of the six million Hong Kong Chinese as a reward for securing victory for Mr John Major in the 1992 British general election, in which he lost his own seat in Bath.
The speech also had a wider historical scope, within which Mr Patten went to considerable lengths to justify British imperialism as an instrument which created a caring, free, capitalist society which could be taken as a model for all Asia.
Hong Kong represents the kind of Asia with which both the west and east are comfortable," he said. It is an Asia committed to the rule of law and respect for human freedoms. It offers in that sense a vision of the future for Asia."
As the Governor's power declines, the focus of political interest in Hong Kong is shifting to the contest to succeed him as chief executive of what will be Special Administrative Region of China on July 1st. Two shipping magnates, two former judges and a senior female civil servant are among the contenders for the job.
The successful candidate is expected to be chosen by a 400 member selection committee named by China before the end of the year. Mr Patten pledged to work closely with his successor, except where it involved co operation with a provisional legislature put in place by Beijing.
"The role of this institution, its credibility and its legitimacy lie at the heart of greater doubts about the future of pluralism and freedom in Hong Kong," he said. "How can you have complete faith in the future of the rule of law if you worry about the integrity of the institution which makes the law?"
China has all along opposed Mr Patten's moves to expand representative government in Hong Kong in the final years of the British presence, maintaining that this first step towards making Hong Kong a test case for Chinese democracy was not envisaged in the Joint Declaration of the leaders of the two countries in 1984, something the British hotly contest.
The Chinese have stated their intention of dissolving the elected council on July 1st and installing its own partly elected body as envisaged in the Basic Law agreed by Mrs Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping 12 years ago.
Mr Patten listed "benchmarks" by which he said the world would judge Hong Kong under Chinese administration. "Is the Hong Kong press still free, with uninhibited coverage of China and of issues on which China has strong views?" he asked. "Are new constraints imposed on freedom of assembly? Is anybody being prosecuted or harassed for the peaceful expression of political, social or religious views?"
Fending off suggestions that he is now a "lame duck" governor, he promised to work "full steam ahead" right up to the final days of disengagement, despite signals from Hong Kong's business community that the British should refrain from introducing initiatives to avoid any risk of annoying China.
Anyone who thinks the Hong Kong government is going to take the afternoon off, anyone who thinks we're going, as some have advised, to tiptoe meekly through the next few months, should just open either this document or this, he declared, waving a pile of papers on which were listed initiatives to improve the quality of Hong Kong life.
He reserved special contempt for those who were rushing to embrace Beijing's favour. "We all know that over the last couple of years we have seen decisions, taken in good faith by the government of Hong Kong, appealed surreptitiously to Peking. . . lobbied against behind closed doors by those whose personal interests may have been adversely affected," he said.
This damaged Hong Kong's autonomy by inviting Chinese cadres to interfere in matters which did not concern them. Mr Patten concluded: I hope that Hong Kong will take tomorrow by storm. And when it does, history will stand and cheer."