In September 2005 he was elected a Distinguished Honorary Fellow of Massey College in the University of Toronto (the only person so elected except for the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) as well as receiving an honorary D. British also value hardworking colleagues but never ignore their family life even though they are in extremely busy at work. degree from the University of Ulster (2005), and in 2005 he was also honored with a life peerage as Baron Patten of Barnes, of Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, as a Roman Catholic he played a vital role overseeing the visit of Pope Benedict XVI's to the UK (2010), and served as Chairman of the BBC Trust (2011-2014).

This view of social relationships is undoubtedly influenced by traditional Confucianism, where individual’s success often relies on family connections, and is far less likely to be attributed to individual effort. In September 2020, he wrote that "Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping's dictatorship is certainly thuggish.Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. The attempt, for example, to understand the relationship between a slave trade and the Atlantic economy of which we were a part seems to me to be fundamentally important. Perhaps Hongkongers are only wistful about the disappearing way of living and declining influence, rather than the colonial rule and its employees.

The Diaries is Patten’s personal experience as the last governor in Hong Kong, a period that spanned 1991 to 1997. This personal perspective is a great supplement to the official narratives one mig The cultural clashes between Chris Patten and Chinese delegates are revealed in terms of their family values, communication skills, negotiation strategies, and contractual arrangements. However, he lost his marginal seat of Bath to the Liberal Democrat candidate Don Foster at that election. Lu] complained that Beijing had not been properly consulted, that he [Lu] and his colleagues were not being given any face, that we [Chinese] were bouncing them with these proposals, that they [British] were out of step with the Basic Law.On John Major's succession as Prime Minister in 1990, Patten became Chairman of the Conservative Party and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Diaries shows that Patten’s relationship with Chinese officials is often less than harmonious, and at times antagonistic. As widely known, British jurisdiction system lies in common law tradition, while in China, people are governed by the rules of the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed, one advantage of using verbal contracts in China is that, when compared to written contracts, there is plenty of room to revise deals since verbal agreements are not recorded in real time.

In a 2014 article for the Financial Times, Patten argued the British government should not stay silent on China interfering with Hong Kong's judiciary and politics, arguing that the UK had a moral and political responsibility to speak out on the issue of universal suffrage in Hong Kong and ensure that China fulfilled its promises in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, reiterating that the agreement was international. Patten also added that the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed that year was an international agreement between China and the United Kingdom, which guaranteed that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years, including the freedoms and civil liberties enjoyed by Hong Kong people.

He wrote, “As well as fulfilling my parental duties looking after Alice, which are a joy, the highlight for me was a birthday dinner which I gave for her along with two of her school friends at a tasty Italian restaurant” (p. However, some readers may find the book boring because they expect to gain some insights on political confrontations or exclusive stories regarding the negotiations between the United Kingdom and China on Hong Kong’s future.