A patriot who broke the mould

Henry Fok played a vital role as China's economy opened up, but he always put the motherland first Henry Fok Ying-tung is one of the few Hong Kong politicians to have commanded the respect of people across the political spectrum. Even politicians who are critical of Beijing praised the vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as a 'sincere patriot' who was always dedicated to the betterment of the country. The Hong Kong-born tycoon was a walking encyclopedia of the history of China's economic reforms and opening up during the past 25 years. Fok, who died of cancer last night aged 83, was always one step ahead in investing on the mainland, with some projects not necessarily profit-driven. In particular he poured billions into developing his family's home town of Panyu , now part of Guangzhou. Otto Lin Chui-chau, the former vice-president of the University of Science and Technology who helped Fok develop the Nansha Information Technology Park in Panyu from the late 1990s, described Mr Fok as a 'true patriot'. 'Many people made billions investing in China riding on the tide of its economic growth. Mr Fok placed himself at risk to help when he saw his motherland was in dire need,' Professor Lin said. 'Remember the Chinese proverb 'delivering coals amidst the snow'? I think patriotism is the backbone of his character.' In the past two decades, Fok embarked on a series of ambitious projects, ranging from founding the mainland's first joint-venture hotel to building the first golf course in the modern era. He started investing when there was just one metalled road in Guangdong - the road linking Guangzhou and the Conghua Hot Spring, which was built for senior leaders to take vacations during the winter. In 1980, two years after the Chinese leadership embarked on economic reform, Fok founded the Zhongshan Hot Spring Resort, the mainland's first joint-venture hotel with a foreign partner, in the remote village of Yongmo in Zhongshan city. In February 1983, he opened the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, the first five-star joint-venture hotel on the mainland. His investment in the hotel industry was a shock to the country's planned economy and orthodox ideology. In an era marked by shortages of staple foods, the two hotels were accused of pushing up the price of daily necessities. The White Swan Hotel sold a bowl of wonton noodles for 4 yuan, compared with an average of 50 cents elsewhere in Guangzhou at the time. But Fok was proud of how the market-oriented principle guiding his hotels' operations had an impact on Guangdong's planned economy. The Zhongshan resort sold a bottle of a mainland-brand beer for more than one yuan in the early 1980s while all other hotels on the mainland followed the state-fixed price of 48 fen. Thousands in the province flocked to the Zhongshan resort in the early 1980s to buy items such as bread because rationing coupons were not required there. None of the 2,000-plus staff at the White Swan Hotel had worked in hospitality before, but Fok insisted it should be managed by mainlanders. The five-star hotel was rated in 1985 by an international tourist organisation as the country's first world-class hotel. In 1984, he built the mainland's first golf course near the Zhongshan resort and established the country's first golf team amid criticism that the game was a 'bourgeois sport'. In the late 1980s, Fok had built the Luoxi Bridge linking Guangzhou and Panyu. The 1.9km bridge was the first toll bridge in the province. Subsequently, more than 10,000 bridges have been built in the province, mostly funded by private capital. It is widely held that he made his first 'bucket of gold' shipping machinery, medicines and other vital supplies to the mainland while an international trade embargo was imposed on China during the Korean war in the early 1950s. Fok enjoyed direct access to many state leaders, including late patriarch Deng Xiaoping . In the early 1990s, he started to develop the Pearl River estuary island of Nansha, which was dotted with desolate beaches. Fok's foundation has invested more than US$2.5 billion in business and recreational facilities on Nansha. Fok was always adamant that the island would become a transport hub because of its location at the geographic centre of the delta. The first phase of the Nansha Information Technology Park, a joint venture between the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Fok's foundation and the Guangzhou government, was completed in 2002. Professor Lin said he admired Fok's vision and dedication to society at large. 'Before work started on building the Nansha IT Park in 1999, I told him that his investment was for a platform to nurture technology and innovation for the Pearl River Delta and would take a very long time, if ever, to recover,' the professor said. 'Mr Fok looked me in the eye and said, 'I do this to benefit the homeland. If in the future we can make even one dollar, the dollar will be returned to society for charity, education or promotion of science and technology'.' Before an interview in Nansha in 1998, the tycoon dined at a staff canteen near the construction site of the Nansha Information Technology Park, taking the same meal prepared for ordinary staff. Fok donated HK$800 million to the University of Science and Technology in July last year. The publicity-shy tycoon said he had never given a thought to having a faculty or a building named after him since he began making donations to the university in 1998. Last year he declined an offer by the university to award him an honorary doctoral degree. Fok was understood to have told the university's senior management that such a move, proposed several months after his donation, would do no good for the university or himself, though the university emphasised it had nothing to do with his donation. Democratic Party legislator Cheung Man-kwong praised Fok as a sincere patriot who dedicated himself selflessly to the country. 'Compared with many 'sudden patriots', he was far more respectable,' Mr Cheung said. 'Of course, he had his limitations. He lacked the courage to urge the central government to change its course when it made serious mistakes. But we can't demand too much from him given his status.' Mr Cheung, a member of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said he was impressed by the fact that Fok had never made any negative remarks on the pro-democracy movement in 1989 that was brutally suppressed by the mainland authorities. Born to a family of fishermen who lived on a sampan, Fok led a miserable childhood. His father died when he was seven. He was forced to abandon his studies at Queen's College in Causeway Bay when he was a Form Three student when the Japanese army invaded Hong Kong in 1941. He struggled to make ends meet by serving as a coolie at Kai Tak Airport and a worker shovelling coal on ferries. But he became a successful businessman after the second world war, with his empire covering restaurants, real estate, hotels and petroleum. He was the founding president of the Hong Kong Real Estate Developers Association and honorary chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce. Fok was a member of the National People's Congress Standing Committee from 1988 to 1993. He was elected vice-chairman of the CPPCC in 1993. He was diagnosed with lymphadenitis cancer in the early 1980s but recovered after receiving treatment on the mainland. A soccer lover, he was honorary president of the Hong Kong Football Association and a former member of the executive committee of the Federation of International Football Associations. In one year he played 365 games. He was awarded an Olympic Order by the International Olympic Committee in 1993.