How Hong Kong can keep the talking going when US-China officials don’t

Neville Lai is the co-founder and CEO of Trigrams Research Group (TRG), an independent boutique research firm dedicated to helping organisations build future-proof capabilities and resilience through market research and strategic foresight to develop critical sectors in Asia.When Tung Chee-hwa died, the obituaries predictably described a Hong Kong shipping mogul who became the city’s first postcolonial chief executive. How his government navigated the Asian financial crisis and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) epidemic and its retreat from Article 23 were highlighted. There was less attention paid to the political hybrid he embodied.Tung sat as vice-chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, until 2023 – state-leader rank, no diplomatic portfolio. His working instrument was the China-united-states-exchange-foundation" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="136527" data-entity-type="organization">China-United States Exchange Foundation, which he established in Hong Kong in 2008, the year marking the 30th anniversary of Sino-US relations, to keep senior Americans and Chinese talking when their governments would not.