David Cottam says HKSAR’s first CE succeeded in maintaining institutional stability during a period of profound change

Tung Chee-hwa, the shipping magnate who became the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s first chief executive and guided the city through its transition from British rule, has died at the age of 89.

Tung took over the administration of Hong Kong from the last British governor, Chris Patten, in July 1997 when the city was handed back to China after more than 150 years of British rule. Before Patten’s arrival in the city in 1992, everything seemed to be in place for a smooth transition of power. Handing over the reins to the first chief executive of the HKSAR would be seamless and uncontroversial. Or so everyone thought.

Before Patten’s appointment, all of Hong Kong’s governors had been civil servants rather than politicians. The expectation was that this tradition would continue, and a safe pair of hands would be chosen to smooth the path of transition in the five-year approach to 1997.

In order to achieve a smooth transition and ensure the effective functioning of Hong Kong’s system following the transition, the Chinese government, in consultation with the British government, made a special arrangement for the first Legislative Council of the HKSAR: As long as they met the requirements of the relevant decisions of the National People’s Congress and provisions of the Basic Law, members of the final LegCo under British rule would be confirmed as members of the first LegCo of the HKSAR. This was known as the “through train” arrangement.

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For the “through train” to be possible, no further electoral changes were to be made without Beijing’s authorization. This arrangement, supported by Hong Kong’s cautious civil servants, would surely have been honored had the usual breed of governor been appointed in 1992.

It was at this point that Patten, as compensation for losing his parliamentary seat in the 1992 United Kingdom general election, was given the position of Hong Kong’s last governor. His arrival heralded a sea change in how things were done. Unlike his predecessors, this was very much a political appointment, seemingly designed to shake things up in the years immediately before the handover. Unsurprisingly, it also had the effect of derailing the through train. Specifically, Patten decided that the right thing to do was to rush through democratic reforms which went further and faster than those agreed with Beijing. His rushed and unilateral acceleration in the pace of electoral reform in Hong Kong put Patten in a confrontational relationship with Beijing. When his political reform package was passed by LegCo in 1994, Beijing decided to terminate the originally planned through-train arrangement, and to set up the Provisional Legislative Council of the HKSAR — after 17 rounds of failed talks with the British government on electoral arrangements.

So much for a smooth transition of power. The through train had well and truly crashed, and acrimony rather than harmony was to characterize the last couple of years of British rule. This was Patten’s parting gift to Hong Kong’s first chief executive. Tung inherited a polarized political landscape where expectations had been unrealistically raised. The “pro-democracy” camp, emboldened by the Patten years, took up the cudgels in demanding rapid progress to “full democracy”, irrespective of Beijing’s wishes for a slower, more evolutionary pace of change. The demolition of the through train had inevitably created political division in post-handover Hong Kong. Instead of the slower, evolutionary progress toward democracy that had been accepted by all sides, the immediate reversal of the Patten reforms in 1997 enabled the “pro-democrats” to portray Beijing and the new chief executive in a negative light, very much setting the tone for the next two decades.

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In this acrimonious context, it is very much to the credit of Tung that he was able to restore some equilibrium to Hong Kong through his calm, measured and diplomatic leadership. He framed his mission around Deng Xiaoping’s “one country, two systems” formula to ensure that Hong Kong would retain its high degree of autonomy, its capitalist system, common-law traditions, and way of life for at least 50 years. Tung emphasized continuity and a business-as-usual approach, seeking to reassure residents, international investors, and the global community that the handover would not disrupt the city’s role as an open financial and trading hub. Early statements stressed preservation of the rule of law, free markets, and Hong Kong people’s mastery of their own destiny under the new constitutional order.

In addition to his political challenge, Tung’s tenure coincided with severe external shocks, including the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, avian flu, and the 2003 SARS epidemic. There were always critics eager to pounce on whatever policies his administration adopted to address these challenges. However, there is no doubt that Tung was successful in maintaining institutional stability during a period of profound change and keeping the city’s core systems functioning amid regional turmoil.

A defining episode came in 2002-03, when his government sought to fulfil the Basic Law’s requirement under Article 23 to enact local national security legislation covering treason, secession, sedition, subversion and related offenses. Despite the SAR government’s obligation to implement Article 23, the proposals triggered opposition from some quarters of society, whipped up by politicians keen to exploit fears that the measures could curtail free speech, free association and other civil liberties. Facing sustained pressure, Tung’s administration withdrew the bill.

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The failure to pass the Article 23 legislation in 2003 left a significant legal gap in safeguarding national security. For nearly two decades, Hong Kong operated without comprehensive local national security laws of the kind required by the Basic Law, a constitutional document. The consequences were significant, contributing to instability during the 2014 “Occupy Central” movement and especially during the large-scale 2019-20 violent protests which nearly brought Hong Kong to its knees. The national security threat posed by the months of rioting, chaos and destruction led directly to legislation by both the central and Hong Kong authorities. In 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress enacted the Hong Kong SAR National Security Law (NSL), and four years later LegCo finally enacted a local security ordinance in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law.

In Tung’s illustrious business and political career, culminating in his considerable achievements as Hong Kong’s first chief executive, the failure to fulfil the Basic Law security law obligations under his watch was a significant moment. With the benefit of hindsight, critics have linked the legal void to the subsequent unrest and violence, which led to the enactment of the NSL and the Article 23 legislation two decades later.

However, Tung was not operating in a vacuum. The acrimonious political environment inherited from Patten’s five-year governorship was difficult for any chief executive to navigate. Tung’s decision to withdraw his security bill was a worthy attempt to maintain harmony, avoid conflict, prevent political polarization, and keep Hong Kong stable. Rather than blaming this pragmatic decision for the subsequent riots, any finger-pointing should be clearly directed not toward Tung but to the explosive legacy of the last British governor.

The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.