Former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee Hwa will attend the state funeral for Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew on Sunday, the city's most senior official to attend the funeral.

He will represent Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying and the Hong Kong government at the funeral.

Mr Lee met Mr Tung in 1997 before Hong Kong was handed back to China. At the time, Mr Tung had already been appointed as chief executive for the new Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.

In a 1999 interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review, Mr Lee said that Mr Tung, who was then chief executive, was stuck in a "no-win job" - caught between the aspirations of Hong Kong people and Beijing's expectations.

Shortly after Mr Tung stepped down in 2005, Mr Lee said, as quoted by the South China Morning Post: "Mr Tung was too nice a man, not sufficiently young and nimble. He wasn't a street fighter.

"In the Hong Kong situation, with people out in the streets, you want a street fighter. Then you can avoid this kind of confrontation," referring to the July 1 protests in 2003 and 2004.