‘Progressive on democracy’ but ‘colonial and aloof’: officials, lawmakers reflect on life of Hong Kong’s last British chief secretary
David Ford, who died on Saturday night aged 82, led the city’s civil service between 1986 and 1993
Top Hong Kong officials past and present have paid tribute to David Ford, the last Briton to lead the civil service in the final decade of colonial rule, recalling how he helped navigate Hong Kong through a string of crises as the clock wound down to 1997.
Ford, who died on Saturday night aged 82, was Hong Kong’s chief secretary between 1986 and 1993, the last in a long line of foreigners holding the position during more than a century of expatriate domination of the government hierarchy. He was succeeded by Anson Chan Fang On-sang.
Ford’s time in the top echelons of the administration came in a period when Hongkongers were increasingly unnerved about the coming handover of sovereignty to China following the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989.
The response to the bloodshed by the colonial government was to put itself at odds with Beijing, rolling out two measures that proved sticking points with officials to the north – the construction of a costly new airport at Chek Lap Kok on Lantau Island, and democratisation of the city’s legislature, which at that time functioned more like an extension of the executive branch of government.
David Ford, the last British chief secretary in Hong Kong, dies aged 82
“After the events of Tiananmen Square there was a strong feeling we needed to have a more representative, independent Legislative Council,” Ford told the Post in 1993. “There has been ... a reluctance by the Chinese to see that natural development.”
