East and west :China, power, and the future of Asia

How will Asia--its vast population, its swirling politics, its recently challenged economics--change our world?

Few Western political figures can answer that question as well as Christopher Patten. For five years, Patten was the governor of Hong Kong, and as China prepared to reclaim its people and its land, he struggled to put in place democratic institutions that would ensure Hong Kong's continued vitality.

In East and West, Patten draws on those struggles to give us an intimate portrait of the real Asia, in all its diversity, and to make a vital argument for the common interest of Eastern and Western powers. The result is a startling departure from the conventional wisdom about China, power, and the future of Asia.

Starting from his own experience as governor, his attempt to introduce democracy to Hong Kong, and his often difficult relationship with both Chinese and Western business and political interests, Patten addresses some of the most vital, and often confused, issues of the coming century.

Patten dismisses talk of a monolithic "Asian value system"--in the East as well as the West--as a self-serving excuse for authoritarianism. While tumbling currencies have silenced talk of "the Asian economic miracle," scholars and politicians still make a living touting Asian exceptionalism, many suggesting that what works for the West cannot work for the East. But Patten argues that it already has. What took place in Asia in the last thirty years, he says, was similar to the industrialization of Europe and the United States, only much faster.

Ultimately, Patten argues that free markets and free politics sustain each other. In the East and in the West, political liberty and economic freedom march together. "I believe a process has likely begun which is irreversible," Patten writes, "and which will ensure that the next century belongs not to Asia or America or any other continent, but to those values which best combine decency and a good life. A hundred years ago, A. E Housman's 'steady drummer' best a warning of death and misery to come. Today, on the threshold of another century, the omens seem better. Eastward as well as westward, the land is bright."

The twenty-first century is destined to become the Pacific century as Hong Kong's melding of East and West spreads throughout Asia. As Hong Kong's last governor Christopher Patten is a uniquely qualified tour guide to Asia's ongoing metamorphosis. No other Western political figure has had so much intimate exposure to the ways of Asian politics.

Starting from his own experience as governor, his attempt to introduce democracy to Hong Kong, and his often difficult relationship with the Chinese, Patten goes on to examine much broader questions about Asia: Is the much-vaunted "Mao to McDonald's" miracle sustainable? Was it such a miracle in the first place? Is the Asian work ethic unique or merely a myth?

The growing recognition of common ground between East and West will be the story of the coming Pacific Century, and the outspoken Patten's commonsense evaluation of the new realities will be one of the most talked-about books of 1998.

Christopher Patten was a Conservative member of Parliament in Britain until 1992. He held a number of senior posts, including Minister of Overseas Development, Environmental Secretary, and chairman of the Conservative Party during its successful 1992 campaign. He was appointed governor of Hong Kong in the same year and held that post until the handover of the colony to China in 1997. Patten is at present chairing the Commission on the Policing of Northern Ireland following the peace agreement there. He lives in London with his wife, a lawyer. They have three daughters.