Hong Kong has held a state funeral for Tung Chee-hwa, the city's first chief executive after Britain returned it to Chinese rule in 1997, marking only the third such honour granted since the handover. Senior officials gathered at the Hong Kong Funeral Home in North Point on Sunday, including Beijing's top Hong Kong affairs envoy Xia Baolong and all surviving former chief executives; Tung's coffin, draped in China's national flag, was carried to a hearse bound for Cape Collinson Crematorium. Tung, who died on 8 September aged 89, was selected by a Beijing-appointed committee to lead the city through turbulent early years that included the Asian financial crisis and the 2003 SARS epidemic, before resigning midway through his second term in 2005 in a move widely attributed to a loss of confidence in him by Beijing.