Tag Archives: Chris Patten

COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN |  I first visited Japan as a young member of the UK Parliament in the early 1980s. Yukio Satoh, an ambitious and forward-thinking diplomat who would later serve as Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations, had recently been posted to the country’s London embassy. Recognizing that the …

As democracies wrestle with problems they once seemed to manage, authoritarians watch with satisfaction COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN | The most compelling argument for liberal democracy is that it empowers citizens to choose their own leaders, effectively placing the country’s present and future in voters’ hands. The system is underpinned by …

COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN | A few weeks ago, I was invited by several churches in and around Oxford to participate in a full-day meeting they had organized to welcome Hong Kong émigrés and their families to the area. Nearly all attendees were beneficiaries of the visa scheme introduced by the …

For the liberal-democratic order to endure, Western countries must defend the principles of their success COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN | During the darkest days of World War II, as young British pilots valiantly fought the Luftwaffe over southern England and German forces prepared to invade the British Isles, Prime Minister Winston …

  COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN |  In December 2003, roughly nine months into the Iraq War that would forever define his legacy, then-US President George W. Bush was asked whether his administration’s policies complied with international law. “I don’t know what you’re talking about by international law. I better consult …

Assertions by China’s Xi Jinping about the decline of the West reveal an underlying anxiety COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN | The recent G7 summit in Hiroshima culminated in an impressive show of unity over the war in Ukraine and China’s expansionism. But are analysts and commentators right to cite the group’s …

Are her government’s tax cuts, ostensibly aimed to stimulate economic growth, brilliant or crazy? COMMENT | CHRIS PATEN | The death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth II united the British people in grief, highlighting the bonds that hold the United Kingdom together: a shared sense of decency, purpose, and fairness. …

COMMENT | CHRIS PATTEN |  In Seize the Hour, her excellent book about the first meeting between US President Richard Nixon and Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, the historian Margaret MacMillan enumerated some of the profound implications of this extraordinary encounter. The meeting, which took place 50 years ago …