The China-United States Exchange Foundation has launched a permanent tribute webpage to Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first chief executive, and collected more than 100 reflections from political and business heavyweights around the world.
The foundation, established by Tung in 2008, said the webpage, which launched on Monday, included tributes from Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and Max Baucus, former United States ambassador to China.
“This permanent tribute not only placemarks his remarkable record of public service but honours his lifelong belief that dialogue can advance global peace, progress and prosperity,” foundation president James Chau said.
“Above all, this tribute is intended to inspire a new generation to advance the cause to which Mr Tung was deeply devoted,” he said. “I saw first-hand Mr Tung’s exceptional sense of duty, generosity and conviction.”
Among those who contributed to the memorial was Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong of the city state.
Goh said his friendship with Tung went back to the early 1970s when they were both in the shipping industry.
“I will remember him as a helpful, sincere, trustworthy friend whom I had the privilege of knowing for more than half a century,” he said.
Yunus said Tung’s life was one of quiet but determined service, highlighting how he guided Hong Kong through a historic and difficult transition as well as building understanding and trust between China and the US.
“That kind of patient, long-term bridge-building is rare, and it leaves a lasting mark far beyond the institutions he led,” he said.
Others who paid tribute to Tung included former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson; John Podesta, former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton; and retired US admiral William Owens.
“He was the epitome of a citizen diplomat. Despite strong differences between our systems and our governments, [Tung] had an unshakeable belief that the people of China and the people of the US had much in common and could share a prosperous and peaceful future through dialogue and understanding,” Podesta said.
Mogens Lykketoft, a past president of the United Nations General Assembly, former World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun and Alibaba Group Holding chairman Joe Tsai also paid tribute to Tung on the website. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
A spokesman for the foundation said some tributes were conveyed privately to the family and therefore did not appear on the webpage.
The tribute page also has a dedicated space where the public can share their own memories and reflections.
Tung, who died on September 8 at the age of 89, is remembered for a tenure marked by difficult policy choices and successive crises, with former officials saying some of his past decisions had taken on a different significance with the passage of time.
He largely withdrew from public view in his final years and was last seen publicly in July 2021, when he attended the premiere of a film marking the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
