Hong Kong holds state funeral for Tung Chee-hwa, first post-handover leader

A state funeral was held in Hong Kong on Sunday for Tung Chee-hwa, the city’s first post-colonial leader, who oversaw its early years after the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule. Chinese officials and Hong Kong political leaders attended the service, which was only the third state funeral in the city since the handover.

Tung, a shipping magnate who served as Hong Kong’s chief executive from 1997 to 2005, died on September 8 at the age of 89. His time in office was marked by the Asian financial crisis, the SARS outbreak and major public protests.

Flower wreaths lined the wall outside the Hong Kong Funeral Home, and live video streamed by Hong Kong media showed Tung’s casket, draped in the Chinese flag, being taken out after the service. Media were not allowed inside. Shi Taifeng, a member of the Politburo of China’s ruling Communist Party, and Xia Baolong, director of China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, left the funeral in a white minibus along with Hong Kong leader John Lee.

About 200 people were invited to the service, an attendee told the South China Morning Post. Others paid their respects at three venues opened across the city. After Tung’s death, the Chinese government described him as a close friend of the Communist Party and an outstanding contributor to the “one-country, two systems” framework that governs Hong Kong and nearby Macao, the former Portuguese colony returned to China in 1999.

Not long after Tung took office in 1997, Hong Kong’s economy was hit by the financial crisis that spread across Asia. In 2003, SARS killed nearly 300 people in the city and dealt another blow to the economy. The same year, an estimated half a million people joined protests against the government’s plan to pass an anti-treason law that critics saw as a threat to civil liberties. The government later shelved the plan, and Tung resigned in 2005, citing health reasons.

The 2003 protest marked the beginning of years of pro-democracy demonstrations that peaked in 2019 and were followed by a crackdown and a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. After stepping down, Tung became vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, and was among 42 people who received national medals and honours in 2019. Sunday’s funeral marked a formal farewell to the leader who guided Hong Kong through the first phase of its post-handover transition.