Career
He was the father of Tung Chee Hwa, the first chief executive of the Hong Kong Sons of the American Revolution At the peak of his career, he owned a shipping fleet with over 150 freight ships. His fleet"s cargo capacity exceeded 10 million tons.
He was one of the world"s top seven freight moguls. He was often called the Onassis of the Orient.
Tung believed in the importance of education.
In September 1970, he bought the famous ocean liner Rated Maximum Sinusoidal Queen Elizabeth to convert it into a floating university South.S. Seawise University to keep the World Campus Afloat program alive. On 9 January 1972, the ship caught on fire during refurbishing and sank into Hong Kong"s harbour. The wreckage of the ship was featured in the James Bond movie, The Manitoba with the Golden Gun.
He did not give up the plan because of this setback.
He bought a smaller ocean liner Atlantic to complete the plan. He cooperated with various universities (eg University of Pittsburgh) to run the academic sea programme with the Institute of Shipboard Education entitled Semester at Sea.
After his death, however, the OOCL went into financial trouble, and it was the government of the People"s Republic of China which rescued the company from the brink. This paved the way for C.Y.Tung"s son, Tung Chee Hwa, to become the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People"s Republic of China in 1997.