Chung Sze-yuen

Sir Sze-yuen Chung, (3 November 1917 – 14 November 2018), often known as Sir S.Y. Chung, was a Hong Kong politician and businessman who served as a Senior Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils during the 1970s and 1980s in the colonial period and the first non-official Convenor of the Executive Council in the SAR period.

For his seniority in the Hong Kong political arena, he was nicknamed the "Great Sir" and "Godfather of Hong Kong politics".

Chung was born in British-ruled Hong Kong on 3 November 1917 with a family root of Fatshan, Guangdong.

He was the eldest son of his father's third wife and the fifth of his eight sons.

His father was an importing metal merchant.

He attended the Anglo-Chinese schools including St. Paul's College and was a member of the St. John's Ambulance and lifesaver of the Royal Life Saving Society as a youth.

After he graduated from St. Paul's College in 1936, he went to study Engineering at St. John's University in Shanghai.

However, he was cut off from Shanghai when it was invaded by the Japanese Empire in 1937 during his summer holidays.

He went on obtained admission to the University of Hong Kong.

In May 1941, he graduated with a first class honours bachelor of science degree in Engineering.

He was soon hired by the Kowloon Whampoa Shipyard as an assistant engineer working in the machine shops at a monthly salary of 200 Hong Kong dollars.

During the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, he joined the Auxiliary Transport Services (a unit under Hong Kong Police ) and was dispatched to the Wanchai Vocation School to take charge of the motor car repair section.

After the fall of Hong Kong, he left to the neutral Macau and later on to the Jiangxi Province to work with his university lecturer Tsang Wah-shing in the Taihe machine factory in early 1942, where he married his fiancée, Cheung Yung-hing.

He was asked to set up another machine factory and became its general manager and also lectured as a part-time associate professor at the Chiang Kai-shek University.

He was also in charge of designing a tea factory for the National Tea Corporation for export to Russia.

In 1944, when Jiangxi fell under the Japanese hand, he joined the exodus to a small town near Xingquo and worked in a machine factory for making textile equipment.

After the liberation, he was appointed plant manager of the electric power plant cum water works in Nanchang but soon resigned and returned to Hong Kong.

He worked as a chief engineer for his friend's family business of World Light Manufactory before he further his study in the United Kingdom in the late summer of 1948.

He received a doctoral degree in Engineering Science from the University of Sheffield in 1951.

He worked as a research officer for the GKN after graduation but he decided to return to Hong Kong at the end of 1951.

Chung reassumed his position at the World Light Manufactory as its chief engineer and later deputy general manager.

He published an article on deep drawing of sheet metal which won the Whitworth Prize of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London in 1952.

After the closedown of the factory, he started his own engineering consulting business in 1953 before he became the general manager of the V. K. Song Limited which produced flashlights and later renamed into Sonca Industries Limited in which he was the executive chairman of the board.

Chung was appointed to be the working party of establishing an industrial association by Governor Robert Black in 1958, which later became the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) in 1960.

An-engineer-turned-politician, Chung was appointed to various public positions by the colonial government including the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) in the 1960s before he was an Unofficial Member of the Legislative and Executive Councils.

He was also appointed to be a provisional member of the Legislative Council by Governor Sir David Trench in April 1965, as well as member of the Trade and Industry Advisory Board, Hong Kong Telephone Advisory Committee, Hong Kong Aviation Advisory Board, Hong Kong Government Radiation Board, Working Committee on Productivity and a Justice of the Peace.

In 1966 when Sir Chau Sik-nin became chairman of the newly founded Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC), Chung succeeded Chau to be the chairman of the Federation.

In 1968, Chung became the permanent member of the Legislative Council and was appointed to the Executive Council by Governor Sir Murray MacLehose in 1972.

In 1974 Chung became the Senior Member of the Legislative Council.

In 1978, Chung resigned from the Legislative Council to devote more time in the Executive Council.

He was also appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1978.

As a Senior Member of the Executive Council, Chung was involved heavily in the Sino-British negotiations on the Hong Kong sovereignty in the early 1980s, in which he sought to voice the concerns on the behalf of the Hong Kong people between the Chinese and British governments.

In 1980, the Advisory Committee submitted a four-page letter to the Governor to ask for the government to begin preliminary negotiations on the subject of sovereignty.

After Senior Member of the Executive Council Sir Yuet-keung Kan and Sir Sidney Gordon both retired in August 1980, Sir S.Y. Chung became the Senior Member, the highest representative position in the government and the "leader of the Hong Kong community".

During his service as the Senior Member of the Executive Council, he witnessed the negotiations of the British and Chinese governments over the sovereignty of Hong Kong.

Before the beginning of the negotiations, he was invited to sit in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in which he declined the offer as he saw it would be a betrayal to the British government.

In September 1982, the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils (UMELCO) headed by Chung sent a five-member delegation to London with Roger Lobo, Li Fook-wo, Lydia Dunn and Chan Kam-chuen to meet with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over the 1997 issue to suggest the status quo of British administration in Hong Kong.

After his retirement from the colonial positions in 1988, he began to take Beijing appointments of pre-handover posts.

In 1997, he was invited by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa to become the first Convenor of the Non-official Members of the SAR Executive Council until his second retirement in 1999.

In order to explore the Hong Kong's prospects after the expiry of the New Territories Land Lease in 1997, an Advisory Committee headed by Financial Secretary Sir Philip Haddon-Cave was set up in 1977 in which Chung was also a member.