ABSTRACT

On 1 July 1997, Tung Chee-hwa was sworn in as the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Before he assumed the office, Tung offered an optimistic view about his job as the Chief Executive of the new Special Administrative Region. As the epigraph to this chapter suggests, Tung believed in a mutually beneficial and harmonious relationship between the communist central government and capitalist Hong Kong in the long run. While this belief may have been valid, Tung was nonetheless troubled by a persistent loss of public confidence in his government during the greater part of his term in office. Dissatisfaction mounted over various policy decisions, and over the pace of democratization. In March 2005, Tung resigned abruptly, citing health problems, before he had completed his second term in office. His then chief aide, the Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang Yamkuen, a veteran civil servant groomed during the colonial era, came to power as his successor. Although this leadership change revived public confidence in the government, debates about further democratization continued to divide the community.