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BEIJING - IF PEOPLE thought the Beijing Olympics would transform China, they were 'kidding themselves', scoffed British elder statesman Chris Patten.
'As my father used to say, give me a break,' said the veteran politician, with mock exasperation.
But don't get him wrong.
Over his five years as the last colonial governor of Hong Kong, Mr Patten - who wears his abiding faith in democracy and free markets on his sleeve - earned a string of endearments from Beijing: 'Fatty Pang', 'arrogant gweilo', 'big dictator' and 'jade-faced prostitute'.
That is all water under the bridge now, though.
These days, as a white-haired writer and thinker drawing on four decades in politics and diplomacy, he is perhaps as commonsensically critical of China as he is of President George W. Bush's United States - intellectually picking apart their problems and international behaviour in his wide-ranging new book, What's Next? Surviving The Twenty-first Century.
Its references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident and Beijing's lasting 'challenge to the idea of democratic universalism' notwithstanding, his publisher Penguin says it had no trouble getting either the 491-page tome or Mr Patten himself into China on his book tour.
On his pit stop in Beijing last month, the 64-year-old, who has been hailed by the British press variously as 'the best foreign secretary Britain never had' or 'the best Tory prime minister they never had', told The Sunday Times that expecting China to morph into a liberal, pluralistic democracy in a hurry is just 'naive'.
The Beijing Olympics were 'a very splashy way' for China to convince the world just how far it had come, said Mr Patten, currently chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle universities.
And it did manage to do so.
'I think the Olympics did quite a bit to change some people's perceptions of China. People had read about how much was happening and changing in China, but (during the Games they could) see it for themselves or on television.'
But the Games themselves did not 'remotely' make Beijing - which had promised improvements in human rights and press freedom when it was awarded hosting rights in 2001 - more open or free, argued the plain-speaking former European commissioner for external relations.
'The world deluded itself that this was a meaningful contract and I never thought it was for a moment... The International Olympic Committee was part of a pantomime in which everyone pretended they got agreements which would advance the cause of human rights in China,' said Mr Patten, who is also co-chairman of the non-profit International Crisis Group.
Yet, if the Western world had indeed punished Beijing by boycotting the Games, it would have been 'taken as a huge offence by the people of China, not just the government', he said.
'It would have done a lot of damage.'
That would not help, at a time when China's economic and political role on the world stage is growing. Seeing China's re-emergence - not 'rise', as Mr Patten, ever respectful of history, pointed out - as a 'threat' is just as counter-productive.
'China has been the largest economy in the world for 18 out of the last 20 centuries and it's plainly going to be the largest economy in the world this century; it's a fifth of humanity. It is inevitably going to play a crucial role in shaping the world in which my grandchildren grow up.'
The nexus of that world will be the ties that bind China and the US, and those between Beijing and the other emerging Asian giant India, he said.
While security analysts still sound the alarm over the geopolitical 'China threat' every so often, Mr Patten dismissed that as readily as he rubbished Beijing's penchant for claiming 'Chinese characteristics' in all things as a case of 'Middle Kingdom-itis'.
What should be more of a worry is the increasingly urgent situation on China's homefront, he argued, while downing a pill for the cold he was nursing with swigs of whisky and English tea.
He said: 'I think what would be a threat would be if anything in China were to go wrong. Because the world needs a prosperous and stable China - and so, the sort of political changes which will be necessary some time I hope can be implemented extremely skilfully. But it's not going to be easy.'
Even as its economy roars ahead at - up till very recently - double-digit speed, China's political compass is missing a magnetised needle, he says in his book.
One way Beijing could try to start fixing this is to deal with political reforms the way it handled its economic ones, suggested Mr Patten.
He said: 'Chinese economic success began by introducing bits of proto-capitalism into bits of China, and allowing the consequences to spill over into the surrounding region. It worked economically and maybe it's the best way to deal with things politically.'
Remembered fondly by the British for shedding tears as the Union flag came down and Hong Kong was handed over to China in June 1997, Mr Patten had irked Beijing when he announced proposals for democratic reform of the colony's institutions just months after taking office in 1992.
Now, Hong Kong stands as the first Chinese-controlled territory to have a real chance of enacting universal suffrage.
Last December, China's top legislative body made a landmark decision saying that Hong Kongers 'may' pick their top official through direct elections in 2017 if proposed changes to the territory's electoral laws are accepted and passed. By 2020, Hong Kong may also elect all its legislators through a free vote.
Optimistic China-watchers hope that might rub off on the mainland and pave the way for democratic reforms there too.
Beijing should see the Hong Kong case as a 'very safe, controlled experiment', said Mr Patten.
'I think it's pretty certain that it's a democratic test that could be managed without having destabilising repercussions for anywhere else in China.'
What is even more urgent in the post-Cold War, post-End of History world is for emerging powers like China, India and Brazil to be given a place at the decision-making table, alongside traditional heavyweights, the US and Europe, argued the self-professed 'liberal internationalist', who in his book confesses sheepishly that he has never tasted that great symbol of globalisation, the Big Mac.
'We're not going to get an outcome on climate change or on nuclear proliferation or on epidemic disease or on trade unless China and India are part of the solution,' said Mr Patten, touching on a theme he explores in his book.
For a start, the emerging economies have to be given more say in the international financial institutions - the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation - that are now up for a big rejig in the current global meltdown.
'The Group of Eight (G-8) is an idea that has run out of road...If you're going to have that sort of meeting, it should be the G-15 or G-20,' he said.
Still, even as the wheels of history turn towards Asia again, it is undeniable that the US remains the world's sole superpower, noted Mr Patten, a vocal opponent of President Bush's Iraq invasion and someone who backs new President-elect Barack Obama.
'We're not living in a world where America can get its own way without taking account of anybody else.
'But America is still the only country that matters everywhere. And unless we have American leadership to solve global problems, they won't get solved.'
