Dame Rosanna Wong Yick-ming (, born 15 August 1952) also known by her married name, Rosanna Tam Wong Yick-ming, in her former marriage from 1979 lasting until 1992, and primarily known as Dr Rosanna Wong in public occasions after 1997, is a Hong Kong social work administrator and politician who has served as the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups since 1980.
Before the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, she was appointed as unofficial member of the Legislative Council from 1985 to 1991 and of the Executive Council from 1988 to 1991. She briefly retired from politics in 1991 but was successful to return as unofficial Executive Councillor for a second time in 1992, and was also appointed chairperson of the Hong Kong Housing Authority in the following year. Wong was trusted by the last British colonial Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten (later Lord), who chose her to replace Baroness Dunn as the Convenor of the Executive Council (equivalent to the Senior Unofficial Member of the Executive Council) in 1995, thus rising as an influential figure in the final years of the colonial government. In 1997, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and became the second Chinese woman, after Baroness Dunn, to be made a Dame in history.
After the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, Wong was one of the two colonial unofficial members who remained in the new Executive Council under the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Nevertheless, when the Housing Authority Short-piling Scandal broke out in 1999, Wong, as the chairperson of the Housing Authority, was heavily blamed by the general public of not taking any responsibility. Under public pressure, she subsequently decided to resign from the Housing Authority four days before the Legislative Council passing the motion of no confidence on her and the Director of Housing, Tony Miller in June 2000. However, her resignation did not prevent her and some other government officials from receiving censure in the short-piling scandal investigation report released by the Legislative Council later in January 2003. Following the scandal, Wong ceased to be an unofficial member of the Executive Council in 2002 but was appointed chairperson of the Education Commission from 2001 to 2007. Since 2003, she has also been a Hong Kong member of the CPPCC National Committee of the People's Republic of China.
Besides, Wong plays a role in the business sector in Hong Kong. She has been a non-executive director of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation since 1996 and has also been an independent non-executive director of Sir Ka-shing Li's Cheung Kong Holdings since 2001.
Biography
Early years Wong was born on 15 August 1952 in Hong Kong to a family descended from Anxi County of Fujian Province in China. Her father Wong Chun Chung was an overseas Chinese from Singapore. Her mother Poon Chor Ying had been a journalist in Vietnam and in Hong Kong was a teacher at St. Stephen's Girls' College. Both had graduated from mainland China universities and were considered well-educated.
Wong is the fourth child in the family. She has three elder sisters and two younger sister and brother. She spent her early years with her family in Shatin and later moved to Kowloon. After entering secondary school, Wong's family resided on Lyttelton Road in Mid-levels on Hong Kong Island.何良懋. 《香港的童年》. 香港：新雅文化事業有限公司. 1997.Edited by Kevin Sinclair, Who's who in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Who's Who in Hong Kong Ltd.: Asianet Information Services Ltd., 1988.
Wong entered St. Stephen's Girls' Primary School in 1962 and followed her sisters to enter St. Stephen's Girls' College, where their mother taught, in 1965. Wong had some classes with her mother, who also taught Regina Ip and Rita Fan, later Secretary for Security of the Hong Kong government and the President of the Legislative Council respectively. Wong once recalled that her mother's knowledge and attitude to life had deeply inspired her thinking that since secondary three, she had become a volunteer and once joined a gospel rehabilitation group for drug addicts to pay visit to the Kowloon Walled City.〈范太當年被禁參加運動會〉. 《蘋果日報》A06. 19 March 2002.
In 1972, Wong graduated from the school and was soon successfully enrolled at the University of Hong Kong studying social work. At first, she was not given a room in any of the residential colleges because she lived too near to the campus. Only when she became a social secretary of St John's College Students' Association in year three of study, she had the chance to move into St John's College. In the university, Wong was something of a student activist and in 1973 joined a university visit the mainland China. All these experiences influenced her deeply and she decided to commit herself to the field of social work upon graduation.
Social work career
Wong received her degree in social work from the University of Hong Kong in 1975 and was immediately employed by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups as a social worker. She was sent to Kowloon West at first and became a supervisor responsible for affairs of teenagers and counselling services in districts including Yau Ma Tei, Sham Shui Po and Tsuen Wan. Wong later received an HSBC scholarship from 1974 to 1975, a Rotary Foundation Educational Award from 1977 to 1978 and a PEO International Peace Scholarship from 1978 to 1979. These scholarships allowed her to further study at the University of Toronto in Canada from 1977 to 1979. After obtaining a master's degree in social work from Toronto, Wong returned to the Federation of Youth Group and was immediately promoted as Executive Secretary (Operations). Later in 1980, she was further promoted as general secretary (later renamed Executive Director) at the age of 28 and thus becoming the leader of the Federation. In this capacity, she has successfully expanded the Federation to be a major teenage service organisation in Hong Kong with a total number of 800 employees.
Apart from the Federation, Wong had also involved deeply in a large number of social organisations including a number of local Christian churches. Since 1981, she had also been appointed as a member of the Executive Committee of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and stepped down in 2005 after more than twenty years of service. From 1984 to 1988, she was appointed to the Subventions and Lotteries Fund Advisory Committee as a member by the government as well.
In 1982, she was awarded Commonwealth Scholarship, studying social policy and planning in the London School of Economics of the United Kingdom, and obtained her master degree in science in 1983. Two years later she received a diploma of executive management in a course organised jointly by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. In the same year, she was awarded Hong Kong's Ten Outstanding Young Persons' Award.《香港特區名人錄》. 香港：星島日報出版社. 2004.
Legislative and Executive Councillor Wong's brilliance as a social administrator was soon noticed by Governor Sir Edward Youde. In 1985, Sir Edward intended to reform the Legislative Council through appointing professionals from different career sectors to the Council. Under the recommendation of Legislative Councillor, Hui Yin Fat, Wong was appointed as unofficial member of the Legislative Council at a relatively young age of 33 and thus entering politics. Other unofficial legislators newly appointed in that year included barrister-at-law Maria Tam, physician Dr Henrietta Ip Man-Hing and so on.〈火鳳凰. 王䓪鳴〉. 《壹週刊》時事短打. 3 May 2001.
Since joining the Legislative Council, she had hold a large number of public duties which included court member of the University of Hong Kong, Technical College (later Polytechnic University), Baptist College (later Baptist University) and City Polytechnic (later City University), member of the Hong Kong committee for UNICEF, vice-patron of Mother's Choice, member of the government's Standing Committee on Young Offenders and so on. Besides, from 1987 to 1988 she was appointed honorary advisor to the Social Welfare Department, member of government's Law Reform Commission and Broadcasting Authority from 1987 to 1990, appointed chairwoman of the Social Welfare Advisory Committee from 1988 to 1991 and appointed the first chairwoman of the government's newly created Commission on Youth from 1990 to 1991.Executive Councillors, Hong Kong Government Website, 1998.岑維休主編. 《香港年鑑》. 香港：華僑日報. 1990.
Wong's work in the Legislative Council was deeply impressed by then Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council Lydia Dunn (later Dame and Baroness) that under her promotion, she was further appointed as unofficial member of the government decision-making body, the Executive Council by Governor Sir David Wilson (later Lord) in 1988. On 16 January 1989 Wong was made an unofficial Justice of the Peace〈太平紳士〉. 《Civil And Miscellaneous Lists》. 2008-11-16-造訪。 and later on the Queen's Birthday in 1990 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to the general public.London Gazette: no. 52173, page 17, 15 June 1990.
However, in 1991 Wong suddenly retired from the two Councils and resigned all her public posts. She chose to further her study with her husband Dr Alfred Tam Yat-chung in the United States, trying to save their marriage from divorce. Yet their attempt was fail and they divorced eventually in 1992.〈刀槍不入. 王䓪鳴〉. 《壹週刊》時事. 4 October 2001. Although the divorce was a terrible blow to her, she was able to continue her study while took care of her two children alone. Finally in 1993, she obtained her master's degree of arts from the University of California, Davis. A year before graduation, she was also awarded the prize of Global Leader of Tomorrow.
Returning to politics In 1991, the Legislative Council introduced direct election for the first time in the history of Hong Kong and the election resulted in the landslide victory of the many new-born local pro-democratic political parties. To balance the power in the Council, to show friendliness to the mainland Chinese regime and to ensure that sovereignty of Hong Kong can be transferred smoothly and peacefully in 1997, many appointed or indirectly elected legislators, such as Allen Lee, Selina Chow and Rita Fan came together and formed a more conservative political group, the Co-operative Resources Centre (later renamed Liberal Party) with the support of then Governor Sir David Wilson immediately after the election. Nevertheless, Sir David was soon forced to retire in 1992 and the British policy towards China changed fundamentally. Sir David's successor, Chris Patten no longer continued his policy of gradual reform but endorsed democratic reform in full-swing. Patten believed the Co-operative Resources Centre would become a hindrance to his reform and therefore he refused to support the Centre as Sir David had done. Furthermore, he immediately reshuffled the pro-Sir David's Executive Council after becoming governor. Except the Senior Member Baroness Dunn, all other members served in Sir David's Executive Council were replaced.