Chung Sze-yuen

Chung was born in British-ruled Hong Kong on 3 November 1917 with a family root of Fatshan, Kwangtung Province. 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.[3] In May 1941, he graduated with a first class honours bachelor of science degree in Engineering.[4]

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[5]) and was dispatched to the Wanchai Vocation School to take charge of the motor car repair section.[6]

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.[7]

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.[8] He received a doctoral degree in Engineering Science from the University of Sheffield in 1951. 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.[9] 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. 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.[10]

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. 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. 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.[11]

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.[12] 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. 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.[13]

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. 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".[14]

Chung remained influential after his retirement. During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Chung urged Governor Sir David Wilson not to abandon the government's long-held policy of neutrality towards China.[27] In 1990, he became a member of the Advisory Council of the Business and Professionals Federation of Hong Kong (BPF), a pro-business conservative political group that grew out of the Group of 89. Chung also advised his protege, Senior Member of the Legislative Council Allen Lee, and Steven Poon, to abandon any pretense of being above politics and form a proper political party with its belief, vision, discipline and platform to counter the emergence of the populist United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK) following the first Legislative Council election in 1991. Lee later transformed the think tank Co-operative Resources Centre (CRC), consisting of appointed Legislative Council members, into the Liberal Party in 1993.[28] Chung was also appointed chairman of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority and was closely involved with its establishment in 1991.

In 1992, Chung accepted the Beijing government's invitation to be a Hong Kong Affairs Advisor to give advice to the Beijing government on various matters in Hong Kong. In 1993, he was appointed to the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) to prepare for the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty. In the committee, he was the convenor of the Economics sub-group on the new airport which became a contentious issue between the British and Chinese governments. In 1995, he was appointed to the Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He went on become one of the 400-member Selection Committee that was responsible for electing the Provisional Legislative Council and the first Chief Executive.

On 24 January 1997, Chief Executive-elect Tung Chee-hwa announced the membership of the first SAR Executive Council, in which Chung became the convenor of the non-official members of the Executive Council. He received the Grand Bauhinia Medal on 1 July 1997, the first day of the new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He served in the council for two more years and retired from all official capacities on 30 June 1999.

In 2001, he published a memoir, Hong Kong's Journey to Reunification: Memoirs of Sze-yuen Chung which covered his life, career and extensive involvement in the Sino-British negotiations in the 1980s.

Chung was a keen volleyball player and played for his school, the St. Paul's College. He was also the vice-captain of the Hong Kong team in the Shanghai national volleyball tournament in 1948.[8] He married Cheung Yung-hing in 1942 and had two daughters and one son. He died on 14 November 2018, shortly after his 101st birthday.[29]

• Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) (1968)
• Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) (1975)
• Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan) (1977)
• Knight Bachelor (1978)
• Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) (1983)[30]
• Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE) (1989)
• Recipient of the Grand Bauhinia Medal (GBM) (1997)