Wong's work in the Legislative Council was deeply impressed by then Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council Lydia Dunn (later Dame and Baroness) that under her promotion, she was further appointed as unofficial member of the government decision-making body, the Executive Council by Governor Sir David Wilson (later Lord) in 1988. On 16 January 1989 Wong was made an unofficial Justice of the Peace and later on the Queen's Birthday in 1990 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to the general public. However, in 1991 Wong suddenly retired from the two Councils and resigned all her public posts. She chose to further her study with her husband Dr Alfred Tam Yat-chung in the United States, trying to save their marriage from divorce. Yet their attempt was fail and they divorced eventually in 1992. Although the divorce was a terrible blow to her, she was able to continue her study while took care of her two children alone. Finally in 1993, she obtained her master's degree of arts from the University of California, Davis. A year before graduation, she was also awarded the prize of Global Leader of Tomorrow. In 1991, the Legislative Council introduced direct election for the first time in the history of Hong Kong and the election resulted in the landslide victory of the many new-born local pro-democratic political parties. To balance the power in the Council, to show friendliness to the mainland Chinese regime and to ensure that sovereignty of Hong Kong can be transferred smoothly and peacefully in 1997, many appointed or indirectly elected legislators, such as Allen Lee, Selina Chow and Rita Fan came together and formed a more conservative political group, the Co-operative Resources Centre (later renamed Liberal Party) with the support of then Governor Sir David Wilson immediately after the election. Nevertheless, Sir David was soon forced to retire in 1992 and the British policy towards China changed fundamentally. Sir David's successor, Chris Patten no longer continued his policy of gradual reform but endorsed democratic reform in full-swing. Patten believed the Co-operative Resources Centre would become a hindrance to his reform and therefore he refused to support the Centre as Sir David had done. Furthermore, he immediately reshuffled the pro-Sir David's Executive Council after becoming governor. Except the Senior Member Baroness Dunn, all other members served in Sir David's Executive Council were replaced. Under this background of wind of change, Wong was appointed back to the Executive Council as unofficial member by Patten in 1992, a year before graduating from the University of California. After returning to Hong Kong politics, she was deeply trusted by the Governor.