Barrie Wiggham

Last updated March 13, 2019

Edward Barrie Wiggham, CBE (born 1937) is a former British senior civil servant in the Hong Kong government. He was the Secretary for the Civil Service from 1990 to 1993.

The Secretary for the Civil Service is the head of the Civil Service Bureau in Hong Kong. Unlike other secretaries for bureaux, the Secretary for the Civil Service is filled by an administrative officer from the civil service, who may choose to return to the civil service when his term expires. Before Principal Officials Accountability System was introduced in 2002, it was a civil service position.

Biography

Wiggham was born in 1937 and was graduated from the Oxford University in Modern Languages in 1961. From 1956 to 1958, he served in the military in Cyprus. He moved to Hong Kong in 1961 to learnt Chinese. Besides that he spoke also French and German. He joined the Hong Kong government and worked in the Urban Services Department and New Territories Administration before he was Deputy Director of Commerce in 1970. He subsequently served as Principal Assistant Financial Secretary, Deputy Secretary for the New Territories.

Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean, located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel, north of Egypt, and southeast of Greece.

Urban Services Department was a government department in Hong Kong. It carried out the policies and managed the facilities of the former Urban Council. After being abolished with the Urban Council in 1999, its functions were inherited by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

In the late 1970s, Wiggham was the head of the Home Affairs Information Branch in charge of overt propaganda for the colony. He was also the first chairman of the secret body called the Standing Committee On Pressure Groups (SCOPG) set up in 1978 which was responsible for coordinating government surveillance of any protest or campaigning group and of mounting counter-attacks.^[1]

He was member of the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group dealing with the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration over Hong Kong's sovereignty after 1997. He was appointed Secretary for General Duties in 1986. After the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, Wiggham publicly asked for major changes to draft Basic Law of Hong Kong. He requested the Chinese authorities to delay the promulgation of the Basic Law scheduled in 1990 and not to station the People's Liberation Army in future Hong Kong in August.^[2] However his suggestions were not adopted.

Sino-British Joint Liaison Group or simply Joint Liaison Group was a meeting group formed in 1985 between the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the People's Republic of China after signing of Sino–British Joint Declaration, a treaty for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It was set up for liaison, consultation and the exchange of information to implement the Joint Declaration and make the transfer of Hong Kong Government in 1997 smooth.

Sino-British Joint Declaration international treaty

The Sino–British Joint Declaration is an international bilateral treaty signed between the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom on 19 December 1984 in Beijing. The Declaration stipulates the sovereign and administrative arrangement over Hong Kong after 1 July 1997, when the lease of the New Territories was set to expire according to the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the armed forces of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and its founding and ruling political party, the Communist Party of China (CPC). The PLA consists of five professional service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and the Strategic Support Force. Units around the country are assigned to one of five Theater commands by geographical location. The PLA is the world's largest military force and constitutes the second largest defence budget in the world. It is one of the fastest modernising military powers in the world and has been termed as a potential military superpower, with significant regional defense and rising global power projection capabilities. China is also the third largest arms exporter in the world.

In 1990, he was appointed Secretary for the Civil Service and official member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong. As Hong Kong's pro-democracy leader Martin Lee called out the British for the betrayal as it handed Hong Kong over to China and refused to introduce a democratic system in Hong Kong, Wiggham defended London by saying that it would be counterproductive to develop democratic institutions that China might dismantle.^[3] He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991.

Executive Council of Hong Kong official advisory body to the Chief Executive of Hong Kong

The Executive Council of Hong Kong is the cabinet of the Government of Hong Kong, acting as a formal body of advisers to the Chief Executive of Hong Kong that serves as a core policy-making organ assisting the Chief Executive. It is analogous to other Executive Councils in the Commonwealth such as the Federal Executive Council of Australia, the Executive Council of New Zealand, and the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.

Martin Lee Chu-ming, SC, JP is a Hong Kong politician and barrister. He is the founding chairman of the United Democrats of Hong Kong and its successor, the Democratic Party, Hong Kong's flagship pro-democracy party. He was also a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2008. Nicknamed the "Father of Democracy" in Hong Kong, he is recognised as one of the most prominent advocates for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong and China.

In 1993, Wiggham was appointed to the new position of the Hong Kong Commissioner for Economic and Trade Affairs, USA. His $12 million mansion in Washington however caused controversy in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.^[4] His position of Secretary for the Civil Service was replaced by Anson Chan, who became the first Chinese and first woman to take such position.

Legislative Council of Hong Kong legislative body of Hong Kong

The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or LegCo is the unicameral legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.

Anson Maria Elizabeth Chan Fang On-sang, GBM, GCMG, CBE, JP is a Hong Kong politician and civil servant who served as Chief Secretary in both the British colonial government of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government under the Chinese sovereignty. She was also an elected member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong for Hong Kong Island between 2007 and 2008.

Related Research Articles

The politics of Hong Kong takes place in a framework of a political system dominated by its quasi-constitutional document, the Hong Kong Basic Law, its own legislature, the Chief Executive as the head of government and of the Special Administrative Region and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government.

Government of Hong Kong principal executive body of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly the Hong Kong Government or simplified as GovHK, refers to the executive authorities of the Hong Kong SAR. The Government is formally led by the Chief Executive of the SAR, who nominates its principal officials for appointment by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.

Emily Lau Wai-hing, JP is a politician in Hong Kong who champions press freedom and human rights. A former journalist, she became the first woman directly elected to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in the 1991 LegCo elections. She served as Legislative Councillor for the New Territories East throughout the 1990s and 2000s until she stepped down in 2016. She was also the chairperson of the Democratic Party.

Allen Lee Peng-fei, CBE, JP is a former Hong Kong industrialist and veteran politician and currently a political commentator. He is the former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, serving from 1978 to 1997 and was the Senior Member of the legislature from 1988 to 1991. He was also the unofficial member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1992. He was the founding chairman of the Liberal Party, a pro-business party in 1993 until he retired after his lost the 1998 election. Since his retirement, he has become a political commentator. Lee currently hosts Legco Review, a RTHK weekly TV programme on the news about Legislative Council, among many other posts.

Sir Andrew Caldecott was a British colonial administrator.

Handover of Hong Kong Hong Kongs return to China

The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, commonly known as the handover of Hong Kong, was the transformation of control over the United Kingdom's then colony of Hong Kong, pursuant to which it ceased to be a British Dependent Territory and became instead a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997. The returned territory comprised Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, which were respectively ceded to Britain in 1842 and 1860, as well as the New Territories, which were leased for 99 years from 1898. The transfer was arranged to coincide with the expiration of this lease on the previous day, 30 June 1997.

Sir Percy Cradock was a British diplomat, civil servant and sinologist who served as British Ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1983, playing a significant role in the Sino-British negotiations which led up to the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984.

Sir Sze-yuen Chung, was a Hong Kong politician who served as a Senior Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils during the 1970s and 1980s in the colonial period and the first Non-official Convenor of the Executive Council in the SAR period. For his seniority in the Hong Kong political arena, he was nicknamed the "Great Sir" and "Godfather of Hong Kong politics".

Peter Lai Hing-ling, JP was Secretary for Security of Hong Kong from 1995 to 1998, spanning the Handover of Hong Kong.

Harnam Singh Grewal (高禮和) CBE ED is a former career civil servant of Hong Kong. He grew up and lived most of his life in Hong Kong. Upon completion of his University education, he returned to serve in the Government of Hong Kong. The last post he held was Secretary for the Civil Service. He retired to Canada in the 1990s.

Gerald Paul Nazareth CBE, GBS was a Hong Kong senior judge, who served in Hong Kong, Brunei and Bermuda.

British Hong Kong denotes the period during which Hong Kong was governed as a colony and British Dependent Territory of the United Kingdom. Excluding the Japanese occupation during the Second World War, Hong Kong was under British rule from 1841 to 1997. The colonial period began with the occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841 during the First Opium War. The island was ceded by Qing China in the aftermath of the war in 1842 and established as a Crown colony in 1843. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. Although Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded in perpetuity, the leased area, which comprised 92 per cent of the territory, was vital to the integrity of Hong Kong that Britain agreed to transfer the entire colony to China upon the expiration of that lease in 1997. The transfer has been considered by many as marking the end of the British Empire.

Hong Kong independence political movement for Hong Kong to be independent from China

Hong Kong independence is a movement that advocates Hong Kong becoming an independent sovereign state. Hong Kong is a special administrative region (SAR) which enjoys a high degree of autonomy under the People's Republic of China (PRC), guaranteed under Article 2 of Hong Kong Basic Law as ratified under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Since the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the PRC in 1997, some Hongkongers have been concerned about Beijing's growing encroachment on the territory's freedoms and the failure of the Hong Kong government to deliver "genuine democracy".

The 1988 Hong Kong electoral reform was carried out by the colonial government during 1987 to 1988 as the second stage of the developments of the representative government. Direct elections to the Legislative Council became the most debated issue during the public consultations. Under the strong opposition from the Government of the People's Republic of China, the Hong Kong government consequently turned down the option of the 1988 direct elections and introduced a little change in the government system.

Thomas Megarry, JP was a Hong Kong civil servant and acting Secretary for Chinese Affairs, a key adviser on Chinese politics and culture.

Liberalism has a long tradition in Hong Kong as an economic philosophy and has become a major political trend since the 1980s, often represented the pro-democracy camp, apart from conservatism which often constitutes the pro-Beijing camp.

Gordon Siu Kwing-chue, CBE, GBS, JP is a former Hong Kong civil servant. From 1993 to 2001, he served as Secretary for Economic Services, Secretary for Transport, head of the Central Policy Unit and Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands.

John Martin Rowlands, CBE was a British civil servant working in the Hong Kong government from 1952 to 1985. He was the Secretary for the Civil Service from 1978 to 1985 and official member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1978 to 1984.

Eric Peter Ho Hung-luen, CBE, JP was a Hong Kong government official. He was the Secretary for Social Services in the 1970s, becoming one of the first Chinese policy secretaries.

References

↑ "A secret plan for dictatorship". New Statesman. 1980.
↑ Cheng, Joseph Y.S. (1990). The Other Hong Kong Report. Chinese University Press.
↑ Kristof, Nicholas D. (23 April 1990). "In Hong Kong, a Deepening Sense of Despair and Betrayal". The New York Times.
↑ "Storm clouds gather over Wiggham Mansion". South China Morning Post. 28 March 1993.

Government offices
Preceded by Harnam Singh Grewal	Secretary for the Civil Service 1990–1993	Succeeded by Anson Chan

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "A secret plan for dictatorship". New Statesman. 1980.

[2] Cheng, Joseph Y.S. (1990). The Other Hong Kong Report. Chinese University Press.

[3] Kristof, Nicholas D. (23 April 1990). "In Hong Kong, a Deepening Sense of Despair and Betrayal". The New York Times.

[4] "Storm clouds gather over Wiggham Mansion". South China Morning Post. 28 March 1993.