The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Beijing

The election of a black man as president of the United States would send an "extraordinary signal" to the world, Hong Kong's last British governor said here on Saturday.

Chris Patten, now a member of Britain's House of Lords and chancellor of Oxford University, gave his endorsement to the Democratic candidate Barack Obama ahead of the US presidential election on Tuesday.

"(Obama's election) would be the most powerful declaration of what America at its best has stood for-the most globalised country in the world, because America is made up of the rest of the world," said Patten.

"I don't think it will be just the Chinese who aret gobsmacked if America elects a black man as president. "I think that the election of Senator Obama would send an extraordinary signal to the rest of the world," he said at an event in Beijing to promote his new book. Many Chinese people believe there remains strong racial discrimination in the United States and Patten was responding to a question on how China was reacting to the possible election of a black US president.

The Conservative British peer also said the United States would play a key role in shaping a new world, particularly in fighting global warming and climate change-an issue he said China would also be hugely involved in.

"At the heart of any initial movement towards a successful international agreement on climate change is bound to be the relationship between Chinat and America," he said.