Hongkonger who rose to inner circle of city’s last British governor dies at age of 76
- Former constitutional affairs minister Michael Sze took part in Sino-British talks on controversial electoral reform proposal ahead of city’s handover to mainland China
- City’s last governor Chris Patten praises Sze as ‘one of Hong Kong’s finest public servants’, calling him ‘brave, honest, honourable and very competent’
Former secretary for constitutional affairs Michael Sze Cho-cheung, who took part in the Sino-British talks on a controversial electoral reform proposal by Hong Kong’s last governor Chris Patten, has died at the age of 76.
Patten on Thursday told the Post that Sze was “one of Hong Kong’s finest public servants”, saying the late-career government employee was “brave, honest, honourable and very competent”.
Sze, who died on Thursday, was promoted to secretary for constitutional affairs in 1991 and soon became embroiled in the tussle between mainland China and Britain over Patten’s electoral reform package.
The blueprint proposed giving 2.7 million people a vote in nine new functional constituencies in the 1995 Legislative Council election. However, Beijing had called the proposal a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which settled Hong Kong’s future in 1984, with the Basic Law and other agreements already in place.
Sze was the only Chinese Hongkonger among a tiny circle of close advisers at the very beginning of Patten’s governorship, which started in July 1992. He was appointed as a member of the Executive Council, Patten’s de facto cabinet in October 1992.
