Tung Chee-hwa

Tung Chee-hwa (born 7 July 1937) is a Hong Kong businessman and retired politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July.

Tung was born in Shanghai on 7 July 1937, 29th day of the fifth lunar month in 1937 in the Chinese calendar into an influential shipping magnate family of Tung Chao Yung.

Tung Chao Yung was the founder of the Orient Overseas Container Line, a shipping company which was closely associated with the government of the Republic of China.

In 1949 during the Chinese Communist Revolution, when Tung was 12 years old, Tung's father moved the family to Hong Kong.

His father remained close to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government on Taiwan, in which the logo OCCL has been plum blossom, the national flower of the Republic of China.

In the 1950s, Tung attended the Chung Wah Middle School, a leftist school later shut down by the Hong Kong colonial government in the light of the 1967 Hong Kong riots.

He was sent abroad to study at Liverpool University, leaving him with a lifelong passion for the Liverpool Football Club.

He graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Science degree in marine engineering in 1960.

From Liverpool he was sent to the United States to work as an engineer at General Electric in Massachusetts, and then for the family business in New York.

He also lived in San Francisco before he returned to Hong Kong in 1969.

All of Tung's children hold American citizenship.

He joined his father's business upon his return to Hong Kong in 1969 and gradually took over the leadership of the family enterprise.

Born as the eldest son of Chinese shipping magnate Tung Chao Yung, who founded Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), Tung took over the family business after his father's death in 1981.

He took over his family business in 1982 when his father died.

However, in 1985, his company was heavily in debt and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

Henry Fok, a pro-Beijing businessman took initiative and helped Tung's family, with the support of the Beijing government.

At the time of the Sino-British negotiation over Hong Kong's sovereignty, Beijing was enforcing the "United Front" strategy to gather the widest possible range of allies together and gradually isolate opponents.

Tung became close to the Communist authorities in Beijing afterward especially with Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, who had risen to power surrounded by his "Shanghai clique"; Tung could be associated with them because he was from the nearby city of Ningbo, Zhejiang and had lived and worked in Shanghai for a while.

Tung was a member of the Basic Law Consultative Committee from 1985 to 1990, responsible for the drafting of the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

Four years later, OOCL teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, and the business was saved by the People's Republic of China government through Henry Fok in 1986.

He was appointed an unofficial member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong by the last British Governor Chris Patten in 1992 and was tipped as Beijing's favourite as the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR.

Under the consensus between the British and Chinese government, Tung, until then remained a low profile in politics, was appointed to the Executive Council of Hong Kong by the last British Governor Chris Patten, the highest advisory body in the colonial government in 1992, before he left the office in 1996 and ran for the first Chief Executive election.

Before the election, he received a warm handshake from Jiang Zemin who crossed a crowded room to single out Tung, which was seen as a sign of him being regarded as Beijing's choice for the Chief Executive.

Tung employed three "isms" in his election campaign, namely Confucianism, elitism and nationalism.

In 1993, he was appointed to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body of China.

He also established close relationship with US President George H. W. Bush and US Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord.

In 1996, he was elected the Chief Executive by a 400-member Selection Committee.

On 11 December 1996, he was elected by a 400-member Selection Committee, receiving 320 votes and beating former judge Yang Ti-liang and tycoon Peter Woo, all three candidates were of Shanghainese descent.

His government was embroiled with a series of crises, including the bird flu and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

He was sworn in as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on the day of transfer of sovereignty on 1 July 1997.

In early 1997, Tung saw his victory in the first Chief Executive election, in the voting conducted by 400 committees of electoral college whose members are appointed by the Chinese Government.

In 2002, he was re-elected without competition.

In 2003, more than 500,000 protesters demanded Tung to step down in the light of the proposed legislation of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 and the SARS outbreak.

He served as a vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) between 2005 and 2023.

Tung resigned in the middle of his second term on 10 March 2005.

After his resignation, he was appointed vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference by the Beijing government and formed the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) in 2008 to influence public opinion towards China in the United States.

In January 2008, Tung and his family were ranked (also by Forbes) as the 16th wealthiest in Hong Kong, with a total value of US$3 billion.

His younger brother, Tung Chee-chen, was ranked as the 23rd wealthiest man in Hong Kong in 2009, worth US$900 million.

In 2014, he founded a think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation consisting of the membership of numerous leading tycoons.

He remains influential in Hong Kong politics and is dubbed as "kingmaker".