Tsang, Donald

▪ 2008

born Oct. 7, 1944, Hong Kong

 As widely expected, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang on March 25, 2007, was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term in office, defeating pro-democracy challenger Alan Leong with 649 of the 772 valid votes cast by the special administrative region's 800-member Election Committee. Voting was restricted to committee members, the majority of whom were Beijing loyalists. Tsang had served as the head of the Hong Kong government since 2005, when he replaced the embattled Tung Chee Hwa as chief executive after Tung resigned the post under pressure from Beijing. Tsang formally began his new five-year term on July 1.

      Tsang grew up in Hong Kong. He joined the Hong Kong Civil Service in 1967 and gained experience working on administrative issues pertaining to the return of the crown colony to Chinese sovereignty. He worked for the Asian Development Bank in Manila in 1977 and later studied in the United States, where he earned a master's degree (1981) in public administration from Harvard University. Returning to Hong Kong, he held a number of government positions, including deputy secretary of the General Duties Branch (1985–89), director general of trade (1991–93), and secretary for the treasury (1993–95).

      In 1995 Tsang was appointed financial secretary of Hong Kong. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, it was Tsang who made the decision to invest billions of dollars of public funds in the stock and futures markets in an effort to help strengthen the Hong Kong dollar. The move, while mostly popular at home, stirred considerable controversy abroad. Tsang was made a Knight of the British Empire in 1997. Named chief secretary of Hong Kong in 2001, he was responsible for leading the 180,000-member Civil Service. He was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal—Hong Kong's highest honour—in 2002 in recognition of his lifetime service to the region.

      Following Tung's resignation in March 2005, Tsang was first named acting chief executive and then in June, facing no opposition, was selected by the Election Committee to serve out the rest of Tung's term. In his first two years in the top post, Tsang earned high marks for his financial stewardship, presiding over a steadily growing economy and recovering stock market. He faced mounting criticism, however, from democratic lawmakers impatient with the pace of reform in Hong Kong. Tsang failed to win passage of a limited constitutional reform package in 2005 (blaming the defeat on “some bloody-minded politicians who wouldn't allow it through in the Legislative Council—against the people's wishes”). He pledged to make a more ambitious effort in his new term, declaring the goals of achieving full democracy and the direct election of the chief executive by the time his term ended in June 2012.

Sherman Hollar

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