Tung Chee-hwa, who died at 89, was not merely Hong Kong's first Chief Executive — he was the human instrument through which an unprecedented political experiment was first tested. Assuming leadership in 1997 as Britain handed the territory to China, he governed under the 'one country, two systems' framework through financial crisis and pandemic, becoming inseparable from the larger question of what Hong Kong would become. His passing closes the opening chapter of that still-unresolved story.