Jasper Tsang

Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, GBS JP (Chinese: 曾鈺成; pinyin: Zēng Yùchéng; born 1947, Guangzhou, China) was the founding Chairman (1992–2003) of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest pro-Beijing political party in Hong Kong.

Since 1997 he has been at the forefront of the pro-Beijing party's move to a 'grass roots' focus. ^[1] In October 2008, he was appointed President of Legislative Council.

Brother

He is the elder brother of Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Home Affairs of Hong Kong, most notable for his participation in the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist Riots.

Biography

Tsang received his primary and secondary education at St. Paul's College and graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1968. He later trained as a teacher at the University of Hong Kong and began his teaching career at Pui Kiu Middle School, a "pro-Beijing" secondary school. He obtained a master's degree in education in 1983, and worked up to become the principal of the school in 1986. In 1998 he left his position at the school to become a full-time politician.

Career

Tsang's involvement in politics began in 1976, when he was appointed a member of the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

He became a member of the Conference's national committee in 1993. He took an active part in the consultative activities when the Hong Kong Basic Law was drafted in the late 1980s and was subsequently appointed to the committee responsible for the preparatory work for the establishment of Hong Kong.

He was also a Council Member of the Open University of Hong Kong, a non-executive director of the Securities and Futures Commission, and the Supervisor of Pui Kiu Middle School, where he formerly served as the principal. He was also the supervisor of a newly established direct-subsidised school, the Pui Kiu College.

He ran unsuccessfully for the Legislative Council in 1995, with his loss being blamed on revelations that he had secured Canadian passports for his wife and children, leading to accusations from political opponents that he could leave for Canada if the 1997 handover did not go well.

Tsang is elected into the Legislative Council to represent the Kowloon West constituency in a direct election. Following the DAB's setback in the District Council elections in November 2003, he resigned the DAB chairmanship.

In 2008 Tsang was elected to be President of the Legislative Council by the newly elected legislators from the 2008 election.^[2]

In 2010, he was called on to resign from the post of president of Legco for breaching the required neutrality of the role by speaking in support of the government's constitutional reform bill.^[3]

Pro-Beijing DAB

Tsang was the founder of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong in 1992.^[4] His party supports the Government in the majority of public policies. Most notably, the DAB was largely supportive of the Government's controversial proposed legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law.

This drew heavy criticism from the pro-democracy camp and was the major target of the 1 July 2003 protest march by 500,000 Hong Kongers. After the mass protest, Tsang opined that many of those who took to the streets had been misled. The comment caused widespread anger among the public, and although Tsang publicly apologised a few days later, his image and his party's popularity were severely affected.

Tsang shouldered the responsibility for the poor performance of his party in the 2003 District Council election, and resigned from the party's chairmanship in December 2003, to be succeeded by Ma Lik. Jasper Tsang made the following statement:

Fellow DAB vice-chairman Lau Kong-wah stated that the public was interested in this disclosure.^[5] Leung Kwok-hung and Albert Chan also stated that being a LegCo president is a sober business and that people cannot be misled and lied to.^[6] While the Communist party has classified the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 as a counter-revolutionary riot, and has never made a full disclosure about the events. Jasper Tsang himself have said that "suppressing students was surely wrong."^[7]

See also

• Politics of Hong Kong
• Tsang Tak-sing
• Yeung Kwong
• List of graduates of University of Hong Kong

References

External links

• Jasper Tsang's official web site