Szeto Wah

Szeto Wah (28 February 1931 – 2 January 2011) was a Hong Kong democracy activist and politician.

Szeto Wah was born in Hong Kong on 28 February 1931 in Hong Kong with the family root in Chikan, Kaiping, Guangdong.

His father, Szeto Ting, moved to Hong Kong for work during his young age.

In 1941 during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, his family moved back to Kaiping.

He recalled his patriotism grew during the war when he heard about the stories of the Chinese war heroes.

His mother died at the age of 38 in 1942 and his father remarried afterwards.

In 1945, when the war had almost ended, his family moved back to Hong Kong.

He was contacted by the underground Communists and joined the Chinese New Democracy Youth League, the predecessor of the Communist Youth League of China, in September 1949.

Under the instruction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Szeto founded the Hok Yau Club in 1949.

Without any official affiliation, Hok Yau Club was responsible for recruiting youths for the Communist cause.

His father died of cancer at the Precious Blood Hospital in 1952 and was survived by his second wife and ten children.

In Hong Kong, Szeto Wah studied at the Yau Ma Tei Government School and then Queen's College, and graduated from the Grantham College of Education.

Under his brother Szeto Ming's influence, he and his siblings joined the YWCA which had a strong left-wing leaning at the time during his student life.

The club ceased to function between 1952 and 1953 after it was busted by the Hong Kong Police Special Branch.

At the same time, he entered the teaching profession in 1952.

After the club resumed activities in 1953, Szeto Wah was ousted in the leadership elections in 1957 and 1958 by the "red faction", the students who studied at the pro-Communist schools compared to the "gray faction" who studied at the English schools like Szeto himself.

After having been stripped of his leadership, Szeto was frustrated with the power struggles and the distrust by the party leadership.

Szeto was sent to become an editor at the left-leaning Children's Weekly in 1960.

At the same time, he became headmaster of the GCEPSA Kwun Tong Primary School in 1961.

After the journal was closed down in 1966, the party ceased to contact Szeto.

In 1971, the Hong Kong government suggested unpegging the salaries of the certificated masters to the nurses to cut their salaries by 15 per cent which sparked an uproar among the teachers.

Szeto Wah was actively involved in the opposition campaign and the founding of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (HKPTU) in 1972 as the founding vice-chairman under Tsin Sai-nin.

The PTU was found in 1972 as an instrument for Tsin Sai-nin to gather teachers' votes in the 1973 Urban Council election, as Tsin was opposed by the Hong Kong Teachers' Association.

After Tsin was elected, he quit the PTU preparatory committee and the chairmanship was succeeded by Szeto.

In April 1973, Szeto Wah took a leading role in two waves of labour strikes.

After the strikes, the teachers negotiated with government representative Jack Cater with Bishop Francis Hsu as the mediator.

As a result, the teachers cancelled the third labour strike and began the negotiation process with the government.

The government eventually backed down on the plan, but installed a "3-2-2" standard which raised the salaries of the certificated masters after their salary points had reached the highest levels in three, two and two years.

Among the recruits at the time was Mo Kwan-nin, who rose to the deputy director of the New China News Agency in 1980s.

He was the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997 and from 1997 to 2004.

Being one of the two icons of the Hong Kong democracy movement alongside Martin Lee, Szeto played an instrumental role in the emergence of the pro-democracy camp.

Entering politics as a trade unionist for teachers, Szeto founded the influential Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and was first elected to the colonial legislature through the newly created Teaching functional constituency in 1985.

He and Martin Lee became the two pro-democrats appointed to the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee by the Beijing government in 1985 until the duo resigned in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

Szeto played a significant part in gathering popular support of the Hong Kong public in the Tiananmen democracy movement and subsequently the Operation Yellowbird rescuing the wanted democracy activists.

He also founded the Hong Kong Alliance which has been responsible for the annual memorials for the protests.

On the basis of the pro-democracy support he also co-founded the United Democrats of Hong Kong to contest in the first Legislative Council direct elections which later transformed into the Democratic Party.

Szeto remained as the unofficial party whip of the Democratic Party.

He retired from the Legislative Council in 2004 and retained his influence in the pan-democracy camp.

In 2010, he led the moderate faction of the camp to oppose the radical-led Five Constituencies Referendum movement and played a significant role in drawing the revised proposal of the electoral reform package in the Democrats' negotiation with the Beijing authorities.

He remained the chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance until he died in 2011 at the age of 79.