Szeto Wah (; 28 February 1931 – 2 January 2011) was a Hong Kong democracy activist and politician. He was the founding chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997 and from 1997 to 2004.
Being one of the two icons of the Hong Kong democracy movement alongside Martin Lee, Szeto played an instrumental role in the emergence of the pro-democracy camp. Entering politics as a trade unionist for teachers, Szeto founded the influential Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union and was first elected to the colonial legislature through the newly created Teaching functional constituency in 1985. He and Martin Lee became the two pro-democrats appointed to the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee by the Beijing government in 1985 until the duo resigned in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
Szeto played a significant part in gathering popular support of the Hong Kong public in the Tiananmen democracy movement and subsequently the Operation Yellowbird rescuing the wanted democracy activists. He also founded the Hong Kong Alliance which has been responsible for the annual memorials for the protests. On the basis of the pro-democracy support he also co-founded the United Democrats of Hong Kong to contest in the first Legislative Council direct elections which later transformed into the Democratic Party.
Szeto remained as the unofficial party whip of the Democratic Party. He retired from the Legislative Council in 2004 and retained his influence in the pan-democracy camp. In 2010, he led the moderate faction of the camp to oppose the radical-led Five Constituencies Referendum movement and played a significant role in drawing the revised proposal of the electoral reform package in the Democrats' negotiation with the Beijing authorities. He remained the chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance until he died in 2011 at the age of 79.
Early life and underground activism
Szeto Wah was born in Hong Kong on 28 February 1931 in Hong Kong with the family root in Chikan, Kaiping, Guangdong. His father, Szeto Ting, moved to Hong Kong for work during his young age. In 1941 during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, his family moved back to Kaiping. He recalled his patriotism grew during the war when he heard about the stories of the Chinese war heroes. His mother died at the age of 38 in 1942 and his father remarried afterwards. In 1945, when the war had almost ended, his family moved back to Hong Kong. His father died of cancer at the Precious Blood Hospital in 1952 and was survived by his second wife and ten children.
In Hong Kong, Szeto Wah studied at the Yau Ma Tei Government School and then Queen's College, and graduated from the Grantham College of Education."Szeto Wah: staunch democrat and patriot ." South China Morning Post. Retrieved on 16 January 2010. Under his brother Szeto Ming's influence, he and his siblings joined the YWCA which had a strong left-wing leaning at the time during his student life. He was contacted by the underground Communists and joined the Chinese New Democracy Youth League, the predecessor of the Communist Youth League of China, in September 1949. Under the instruction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Szeto founded the Hok Yau Club in 1949. Without any official affiliation, Hok Yau Club was responsible for recruiting youths for the Communist cause. Among the recruits at the time was Mo Kwan-nin, who rose to the deputy director of the New China News Agency in 1980s. The club ceased to function between 1952 and 1953 after it was busted by the Hong Kong Police Special Branch. At the same time, he entered the teaching profession in 1952.
After the club resumed activities in 1953, Szeto Wah was ousted in the leadership elections in 1957 and 1958 by the "red faction", the students who studied at the pro-Communist schools compared to the "gray faction" who studied at the English schools like Szeto himself. After having been stripped of his leadership, Szeto was frustrated with the power struggles and the distrust by the party leadership. Szeto was sent to become an editor at the left-leaning Children's Weekly in 1960. At the same time, he became headmaster of the GCEPSA Kwun Tong Primary School in 1961.Cheung, Gary (3 January 2011) "Szeto Wah: staunch democrat and patriot", South China Morning Post After the journal was closed down in 1966, the party ceased to contact Szeto.
Teacher unionism and activism In 1971, the Hong Kong government suggested unpegging the salaries of the certificated masters to the nurses to cut their salaries by 15 per cent which sparked an uproar among the teachers. Szeto Wah was actively involved in the opposition campaign and the founding of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union (HKPTU) in 1972 as the founding vice-chairman under Tsin Sai-nin. In April 1973, Szeto Wah took a leading role in two waves of labour strikes. After the strikes, the teachers negotiated with government representative Jack Cater with Bishop Francis Hsu as the mediator. As a result, the teachers cancelled the third labour strike and began the negotiation process with the government. The government eventually backed down on the plan, but installed a "3-2-2" standard which raised the salaries of the certificated masters after their salary points had reached the highest levels in three, two and two years.
The PTU was found in 1972 as an instrument for Tsin Sai-nin to gather teachers' votes in the 1973 Urban Council election, as Tsin was opposed by the Hong Kong Teachers' Association. After Tsin was elected, he quit the PTU preparatory committee and the chairmanship was succeeded by Szeto. Szeto became the first chairman elected in 1974 and assumed its position until 1990. He was seen by journalist Louise do Rosario as "a dictatorial leader...in most meetings he monopolises the talking, with detail of his plan, strategies well-sorted out before his colleagues start to comprehend the basic outline."
In 1977, the Precious Blood Golden Jubilee Secondary School was exposed with a corruption scandal. The teachers and students launched a strike for two days. In response, the Director of Education issued warning letters to the teachers. The PTU received complaints from the teachers and demanded the withdrawal of the warning letters. Afterwards, the school changed its leadership and issued new restrictions into teachers' contracts and warning letters to teachers against Szeto Wah's advice. In May 1977, the Education Department closed down the school with the approval of the Executive Council. The PTU organised assemblies and petitions to demand the reopening of the school and investigation of the event. As a result, Governor Murray MacLehose appointed a three-member committee into the event consisting of Rayson Huang, Lo King-man and Maisie Wong. The committee suggested the founding of the Ng Yuk Secondary School to receive the teachers and students, withdrawing the warning letters and negating the actions of the school.
The PTU continued to grow into a significant labour union and pressure group in the territory.Ma, Mary (11 February 2010), The fight never ends for Szeto , The Standard According to do Rosario, Szeto even became one of "the most influential persons in Hongkong's political scene mid-70s". Due to its scale and influence, the PTU was put under surveillance by the Standing Committee on Pressure Groups (SCOPG) of the Hong Kong government in 1979. In the report, the PTU was noted by its influence and organisation. Szeto was highlighted for his leadership and effectiveness in maintaining the PTU's independence against Communist infiltration.
In 1978, Szeto Wah was elected chairman of the joint committee of the Chinese Language Movement during the second wave of the movement for the equal status of the Chinese language to English. The joint committee laid out three goals: the full implementation of the Chinese language as the official language, teaching with Chinese in school, and improvement of the Chinese teaching along with English. The movement died down as the Sino-British negotiation over the Hong Kong sovereignty took the spotlight in the early 1980s.
Szeto was also involved in the Defend Diaoyu Islands movement in 1982 sparked by the Japanese government's revision of the history textbooks. He organised the assembly on 18 September, the anniversary of the Mukden Incident, in Victoria Park which was well attended.
Early pro-democracy activism In the 1980s during the Sino-British negotiation over the Hong Kong sovereignty, Szeto Wah called for the Chinese resumption of the Hong Kong sovereignty and a democratic China and Hong Kong. In 1984 the Hong Kong government published the Green Paper: the Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong to suggest the introduction of direct elections in Hong Kong. Initiated by the Szeto-led PTU, 89 organisations attended an assembly at the Ko Shan Theatre on 18 September 1984 in response to the Green Paper. In December 1984, Szeto was invited by the Beijing government to witness the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
In 1985, the Beijing government invited Szeto to sit on the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee to draft the Basic Law of Hong Kong, the mini-constitution of the Special Administrative Region after 1997. He met another like-minded barrister Martin Lee in the Drafting Committee with whom he began to push for further democratisation in the following years. In the first indirect elections to the Legislative Council, Szeto was elected through the Teaching functional constituency with Martin Lee who got elected through the Legal sector.
Szeto Wah began actively pushing a faster pace of democratisation. On 27 October 1986, 91 organisations gathered to form the Joint Committee on the Promotion of Democratic Government to push forward the proposal of the "Group of 190" which demanded half of the seats in the 1988 Legislative Council to be elected directly. The committee also sent a delegation including Szeto to Beijing to meet with deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Li Hou. However, despite the general support the committee received on the 1988 direct elections, the Hong Kong government's Survey Office concluded that 70 per cent of the people opposed it. The government's decision to introduce direct elections only in 1991 was protested by the pro-democrats who burnt a paper-made lame duck to mock the Hong Kong government's back down in front of Beijing's pressure.
The joint committee also demanded direct elections of the post-1997 Chief Executive and the Legislative Council to be included in the Basic Law. The Group of 190 proposal was countered by the highly conservative Cha proposal by Louis Cha and Cha Chi-ming backed by Beijing. The joint committee launched a series of campaign against the Cha proposal. As a result, Szeto Wah and Martin Lee became the only two drafters to vote against the proposal in the Drafting Committee.
1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and memorials
The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre became the breaking point of the relationship of Szeto Wah and the CCP. The Joint Committee on the Promotion of Democratic Government was active in voicing support in the student protests in Beijing starting from May. On 20 May, it organised a rally against the government's martial law which attracted a large amount of turnout despite under the typhoon no. 8. On the next day, another million attended the rally marching from Chater Road in Central to Happy Valley Racecourse. The joint committee announced its reorganisation into the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China. Szeto was elected chairman of the alliance, a role in which he remained until his death in 2011.