Beijing once saw Szeto Wah as Hong Kong's potential answer to Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, after 1997, the late democracy stalwart revealed in his memoirs, launched posthumously yesterday.
In The Endless River Eastward Flows: A Memoir, Szeto wrote that Xu Jiatun, director of the Hong Kong branch of the Xinhua News Agency from 1983 to 1990, pinned high hopes on him and was grooming him as a possible future chief executive. Szeto believed he could become chief executive if he followed Beijing's orders.
Xinhua acted as Beijing's de facto embassy in Hong Kong before the handover in 1997. Szeto mentioned in his memoir that he rejected Xu's invitation in 1984 to join the Chinese Communist Party.
He had joined the New Democracy Youth League, the forerunner of the Communist Youth League, in September 1949.
'I learned that Li Qixin, then deputy director of the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua, said in an internal meeting [in the 1980s] that I [Szeto] should be able to become Hong Kong's 'Lee Kuan Yew',' Szeto wrote.
Lee became Singapore's prime minister in 1959 and led the city state to prosperity after independence from Malaysia in 1965.
Szeto died of lung cancer in January at the age of 79. His 300,000 word memoir is scheduled to hit the shelves on Wednesday.