Eric Edward Hotung CBE (June 8, 1926 – September 20, 2017) was a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

billionaire businessman, financier, and philanthropist.

Biography

Hotung was born to

Robert Hotung Sir Robert Ho Tung Bosman, (22 December 1862 – 26 April 1956), also known as Sir Robert Ho Tung, was a businessman and philanthropist in British Hong Kong. Known as "the grand old man of Hong Kong" (), he was knighted in 1915 (Knight Bachel ...

's second son Edward Hotung and Irish woman Mordia O'Shea in 1926 in

. His father founded the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange in Hong Kong. His brother was art collector and philanthropist Joseph Hotung. He moved to Shanghai as a child and attended St. Francis Xavier's College. He returned to Hong Kong during World War II and worked in

Tung Wah Hospital Tung Wah Hospital is a Charitable hospital in Hong Kong under the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. Located above Possession Point, at 12 Po Yan Street in Sheung Wan, it is the first hospital established in Colonial Hong Kong for the general public ...

. After the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, he returned to Shanghai with his family, which was put under house arrest by the Japanese. Hotung went to the United States for his studies after the war, graduating from Georgetown University in 1951. He returned to Hong Kong in 1957 after the death of his father and grandfather, inheriting the family business. Hotung maintained good relations with political leaders from around the world, including Chinese leaders

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...

, and

Li Peng Li Peng (; 20 October 1928 – 22 July 2019) was a Chinese politician who served as the fourth Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1987 to 1998, and as the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Chi ...

and United States Presidents

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

and Ronald Reagan. He also helped arrange Premier

Zhu Rongji Zhu Rongji (; IPA: ; born 23 October 1928) is a retired Chinese politician who served as Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1998 to 2003 and CCP Politburo Standing Committee member from 1992 to 2002 along with the Chinese Communis ...

's trip to Washington, D.C. in 1990. He also helped negotiate the release of dissident physicist

Fang Lizhi Fang Lizhi (also Li-Zhi; February 12, 1936 – April 6, 2012) was a Chinese astrophysicist, vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China, and activist whose liberal ideas inspired the pro-democracy student movement ...

, who was seeking refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He also campaigned for the release of Communist Party General Secretary

Zhao Ziyang Zhao Ziyang ( zh, 赵紫阳; pronounced , 17 October 1919 – 17 January 2005) was a Chinese politician. He was the third premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1 ...

, who was put under house arrest for his sympathies with the demonstrators in

Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen ...

in 1989. During the

1999 East Timorese crisis The 1999 East Timorese crisis began with attacks by pro-Indonesia militia groups on civilians, and expanded to general violence throughout the country, centred in the capital Dili. The violence intensified after a majority of eligible East Timor ...

, Hotung bought a former

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

navy ship, ''HMAS Moresby'', to transport 12,800

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wes ...

ese refugees back to their home. After the country became independent, Hotung was named its ambassador-at-large. In 2000, Hotung made a $5 million donation to

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

and founded the Eric E. Hotung International Law Center. Hotung was named a

Commander of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

Personal life

Hotung was married to

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

-born Patricia Anne Shea. In his earlier life, he was known in Hong Kong for his love affair with his cousin, Winnie Ho Yuen-kin, a sister of gambling tycoon

Stanley Ho Stanley Ho Hung-sun (; 25 November 192126 May 2020) was a Hong Kong-Macau billionaire businessman. His original patrilineal surname was Bosman, which was later sinicized to 何 (Ho). He was the founder and chairman of SJM Holdings, which owns ...

. Hotung had eight children, including two with Winnie Ho. He was a resident at the

Osborne Apartments The Osborne, also known as the Osborne Apartments or 205 West 57th Street, is an apartment building at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The Osborne was originally designed by James Edward Ware and constr ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He and Winnie Ho were sued in 2006 by their son, Anthony Hotung, who was not told of his interests in two family trusts upon turning 21. In 2012, Hotung was ordered by a

Fairfax County, Virginia Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C ...

court to pay his son, Michael Hotung, $1.2 million for libel. Hotung died on September 20, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotung, Eric 1926 births 2017 deaths Hong Kong philanthropists Hong Kong businesspeople Ho family Hong Kong billionaires Georgetown University alumni Commanders of the Order of the British Empire