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 Delta i ...

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 Bache ...

'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 Sir Joseph Edward Hotung (1930 – 16 December 2021) was a Hong Kong businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. Biography Hotung was born to Edward Hotung, son of Hong Kong tycoon Robert Hotung, in Shanghai in 1930. His brother was Eric H ...

. He moved to Shanghai as a child and attended

St. Francis Xavier's College , motto_translation = Gentle In Manner; Resolute In Action , established = , religion = Catholic , faculty = 56 , enrollment = 700 , gender = Boys school , language = English, Chinese ...

. He returned to Hong Kong during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and worked in Tung Wah Hospital. 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 Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

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 China, People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. Aft ...

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 pre ...

, 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, Ch ...

and United States Presidents

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, 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 Ronald Reagan. He also helped arrange Premier Zhu Rongji's trip to Washington, D.C. in 1990. He also helped negotiate the release of dissident physicist Fang Lizhi, 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 19 ...

, 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 Tiananme ...

in 1989. During the 1999 East Timorese crisis, Hotung bought a former Australian 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-we ...

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 and founded the Eric E. Hotung International Law Center. Hotung was named a Commander of the British Empire in

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 Afghanistan ...

Personal life

Hotung was married to U.S.-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. Hotung had eight children, including two with Winnie Ho. He was a resident at the Osborne Apartments in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. 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 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