Lee was born in 1923 into the prominent Lee family. His father,
Hysan Lee, was a multi-millionaire who was nicknamed the "King of Opium". He served in the
National Revolutionary Army during the
Second World War, in which he was an interpreter for General
Joe Stillwell's army in the
China Burma India Theater. He attended
Lingnan College before he moved to the United States, where he attended
Princeton University, majoring in chemistry and attaining membership in
Sigma Xi. He was also a member of the
Campus Club. In 1955, he received a doctoral degree in chemistry and took up a post-doctoral study at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before he joined the chemistry department at the
University of Kansas. He returned to Hong Kong in 1980 to take up the directorship of his family business Lee Hysan Estate Co. and then the Hysan Development Co. In 1985, he was appointed member of the
Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee for drafting the
Basic Law of Hong Kong, the mini-constitution for post-1997 Hong Kong, in which he was part of the
Group of 89 a conservative faction consisting of businessmen and professionals. In 1989, he became the founding chairman of the
New Hong Kong Alliance which emerged from the Group of 89. == Personal ==