Roman Catholic Cardinal. Born in the village of Ho Hau, Wu-hua, in the province of Guangdong, China, John Baptist Wu Cheng-chung received his primary education at the village's elementary school prior to entering seminary in Kaying. Furthering his studies at South China's Regional Seminary of Aberdeen, Hong Kong, he was ordained priest on July 6, 1952 at the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Hong Kong. Performing pastoral work at the refugee center of Tung Tau Tsuen, Kowloon, with the Communist take-over of his homeland it became impossible for him to return to his native country. Moving to Rome, he underwent studies at Pontifical Urbanian University of Rome, eventually earning a doctorate 'summa cum laude' in canon law. Successively, he was sent to the United States to gain experience in diocesan administration, working respectively at the chanceries of the archdioceses of New York, Boston and Chicago from 1956 until 1957. Rendering ministry in the diocese of Hsin-chu, Taiwan, between 1957 and 1975, he was elected bishop of Xianggang by Pope Paul VI, receiving his episcopal consecration on July 25, 1975 inside the named cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of Hong Kong from Cardinal Agnelo Rossi. Visiting Guangdong in 1986 for an emotional reunion with his then 85-year-old mother Mary Chow after a forty year separation, Pope John Paul II created him cardinal priest in the consistory of June 28, 1988 with the title of Beata Vergine Maria del Monte Carmelo a Mostacciano, becoming thus the first cardinal from Hong Kong. The Cardinal died from advanced stages of melanoma and bone marrow cancer complicated by diabetes while recovered at the Queen Mary Hospital of Hong Kong. Buried in St. Michael's Catholic Cemetery of Happy Valley following the celebration of a solemn funeral mass presided by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe at the cathedral of Hong Kong, at a later date, his remains were transferred to the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and re-interred in a specially constructed crypt on the initiative of Cardinal Joseph Zen SDB., next to his predecessors.