Background
Fok was born in May 1923 in Panyu County, Guangdong Province, to a family of limited means.
Fok was born in May 1923 in Panyu County, Guangdong Province, to a family of limited means.
The loss of his father, who died in a boating accident when Fok was seven, did not prevent him from attending Queens College in Causeway Bay, a top high school in Hong Kong. However, the Japanese invasion prevented him from finishing his education. After he was forced to quit school, Fok ran the small family boat business while working as a laborer shoveling coal onto ferries.
By the end of World War II, Fok had established a good reputation through his ability to mix business and politics, and to create unique relationships while smuggling necessities such as iron plates, pipes, gasoline, tires, and penicillin to the mainland. In the early 1950s, he reportedly circumvented a United Nations arms embargo to smuggle weapons during the Korean War. His involvement proved his loyalty to Beijing and helped establish close relationships with mainland leaders. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Fok was a successful businessman who managed to promote the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong even as he supported the growth and development of the Chinese economy. His business interests expanded to real estate development, including restaurants and hotels, and he helped develop the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou in 1983, China’s first five-star hotel.
Besides amassing a fortune in real estate, Fok was successful in the gambling industry. During the 1960s, Fok saw the potential of gaming and cooperated with the casino millionaire Stanley Ho Hung-Sun to create a gambling monopoly. Fok’s business acumen and connections allowed him to make investments in mainland China in the 1970s before widespread economic reform opened the market to largescale investment. Fok’s success in business allowed him to emerge as an influential voice in politics. In 1980 he became a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body, where he served as the vice-chairman and advised the party on economic issues.
Before the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, Henry Fok was a member of the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the vice-chairman of the Preliminary Working Committee of Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong SAR, and the vice-chairman of the Preparatory Committee of Hong Kong SAR. He was also Standing Committee member of 7th National People's Congress.
The press frequently reports that Henry Fok had introduced Tung Chee Hwa to Jiang Zemin as a possible candidate of the first Hong Kong Chief Executive.
Henry Fok helped Tung Chee Hwa out of a near-bankruptcy of his family's Orient Overseas Container Line in the 1980s. Because of this relationship, it was often said while Tung was the Chief Executive of Hong Kong that Fok 'intervened/advised' if times, or rather Beijing, called for it.
Among Fok's children, the best-known are:
Timothy Fok Tsun-ting – Hong Kong Football Association chairman and Legislative Council member.
Ian Fok Chun-wan – managing director, Yau Wing Co. Ltd.; Director, Fok Ying Tung Foundation Ltd, a former chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, whose son was convicted for drug possession in 2005.
Fok had family roots in Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong.