Tung Chee-hwa (Chinese: 董建華; 7 July 1937 – 8 September 2026) was a Hong Kong businessman and politician who served as the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong between 1997 and 2005, upon the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July. He served as a vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) between 2005 and 2023.
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. 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.
Tung was appointed as an unofficial member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong by last British Governor Chris Patten in 1992 and was tipped as Beijing's favourite as the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR. In 1996, he was elected the Chief Executive by a 400-member Selection Committee. His government was embroiled in a series of crises, including the bird flu and the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 2002, he was re-elected without competition. In 2003, more than 500,000 protesters demanded Tung step down in the light of the proposed legislation of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 and the SARS outbreak. 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 2014, he founded a think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation consisting of the membership of numerous leading tycoons. He remained influential in Hong Kong politics and was dubbed as a "kingmaker".
Tung was born in Xuhui District, Shanghai, on 7 July 1937, the 29th day of the fifth lunar month in 1937 in the Chinese calendar, into the 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. Tung Chee-hwa's younger brother, Tung Chee-chen, was ranked as the 23rd wealthiest man in Hong Kong in 2009, worth US$900 million. 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.
In 1949 during the Chinese Communist Revolution, when Tung was 12 years old, Tung's father moved the family to Hong Kong. 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.
Early business and political career
Tung joined his father's business upon his return to Hong Kong in 1969 and gradually took over the leadership of the family enterprise. 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 Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
He 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 was able to 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 from 1985 to 1990 of the Basic Law Consultative Committee, responsible for the drafting of the Basic Law of Hong Kong. In 1993, he was appointed to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body of the People's Republic of China.
Under the consensus between the British and People's Republic of China governments, Tung, who until then had remained a low profile in politics, was appointed in 1992 by the last British Governor, Chris Patten, to the Executive Council of Hong Kong, the highest advisory body in the colonial government. In 1996 he left office to run in 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 his being regarded as Beijing's choice for the Chief Executive. Tung employed three "isms" in his election campaign, namely Confucianism, elitism and nationalism. On 11 December 1996, he was elected by a 400-member Selection Committee, receiving 320 votes and defeating former Hong Kong Chief Justice Yang Ti-liang and tycoon Peter Woo. All three candidates were of Shanghainese descent. 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 the electoral college whose members are appointed by the PRC Government.
The government pledged to focus on three policy areas: housing, the elderly, and education. Measures on housing included a pledge to provide 85,000 housing flats each year so as to resolve the problems of soaring property prices. The Asian financial crisis that hit Hong Kong in the months after Tung took office made this objective almost immediately redundant and, in fact, it was a collapse in property prices that became a far more pressing problem in the years between 1998 and 2002.
After being appointed by the State Council of China, Tung took office on 1 July 1997. His first term was significantly – and negatively – impacted by the Asian financial crisis and there was criticism by the general public of his style of governance. Job losses and plummeting values in the stock and property markets, combined with controversial economic policies (which were called crony capitalism at the time), the people of Hong Kong started to question Tung and the HKSAR government.
During Tung's first term the government proposed a number of controversial infrastructure and reformation projects including technology park, a science park, a Chinese medicine centre and the Disney theme park. Tung's decisions were somewhat questioned by the central government, including Jiang Zemin, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Questions arose over Tung's decision to grant the Cyberport Project to Richard Li, son of tycoon Li Ka-shing, without the benefit of an open tender.