Jasper Tsang

Jasper Tsang Yok-sing (born 17 May 1947) is a Hong Kong politician.

Tsang was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China on 17 May 1947.

Tsang's father, Tsang Chiu-kan was a clerk at the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, a pro-Beijing business organisation in the colony.

He moved to Hong Kong when he was two years old and grew up in Sai Wan's Academic Terrace.

Tsang received his primary and secondary education at St. Paul's College run by the Hong Kong Anglican Church.

He studied mathematics at the University of Hong Kong, graduating with first class honours.

Tsang grew his patriotic sentiments and interest in Marxism by reading the leftist newspaper Wen Wei Po which his father brought home from work everyday and worshipped Qian Xuesen, a renowned scientist who returned to the mainland from the United States in the 1950s.

In 1966, he went back to Guangzhou with his mother and was impressed by the socialist life there.

He proclaimed himself a Marxist and studied works of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong with like-minded classmates at a time when the majority of the students at the University of Hong Kong supported the colonial rule and had negative views on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He joined several university students in making donations to the leftist unions through Wen Wei Po following the industrial dispute at the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works in April 1967 which later escalated to large-scale riots.

He joined the demonstrations in Central and founded a student journal called New HKU to launch a counter-propaganda against The Undergrad, the official publication of the Hong Kong University Students' Union which was critical of the riots.

His brother, Tsang Tak-sing, was arrested, tried and convicted for distributing anti-government leaflets at school, and was imprisoned for 18 months.

In the wake of his brother's event, Tsang gave up the plans to further his studies abroad although he had been accepted by four prominent universities in the United States.

After graduating from the University of Hong Kong, Tsang gave up his supposedly bright future as a university graduate and joined the leftist Piu Kiu Middle School as a teacher under the patronage of principal Ng Hong-mun, at the time the pro-CCP leftists were marginalised by the colonial government.

After the downfall of Gang of Four in 1976, Tsang began to question his own socialist beliefs.

He stepped into the politics in 1976 when he was appointed a member of the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Graduated from the University of Hong Kong, Tsang chose to teach in the leftist Pui Kiu Middle School and became its principal before he stepped into politics in the 1980s.

In the mid-1980s, Tsang was actively involved in the discussion of the drafting of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, the mini-constitution after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997.

He was one of the members of the "Group of 38" proposal consisting of educators with leftist background led by Basic Law Consultative Committee member Cheng Kai-nam which put forward a middle-of-the-ground proposal between the uncompromising rift of the pro-business conservative "Group of 89" and the pro-democracy liberal "Group of 190" proposals.

He obtained a Graduate Diploma of Education in 1981 and a Master of Education at the University of Hong Kong in 1983.

He went on to become the principal of the Piu Kiu Middle School in 1986 until he left his position to become a full-time politician.

He became the supervisor of the school and was also the supervisor of a newly established direct-subsidised school, the Pui Kiu College.

Despite the events of Gang of Four and the political instability, Tsang remained faithful to the Chinese Communist Party.

Due to his good education background, Tsang became a high-flyer within the leftist camp.

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Tsang called for the support of the teachers and students of the Pui Kiu Middle School to support the Tiananmen students and their cause for a democratic China.

After the massacre on 4 June, he told the reporters that he was "shocked and sad".

However he and other leftists soon reiterated their position on the event and were recalled under Beijing's command.

After the defeat of the traditional leftist candidates in the first direct election of the Legislative Council by the pro-democracy candidates of the United Democrats of Hong Kong in the wake of the pro-democracy sentiment after the Tiananmen incident in 1991, Tsang and other leftists founded the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong under the call of director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Lu Ping to gear up the "patriotic force" in the territory.

Tsang became the first chairman of the party.

He was subsequently appointed to the Preparatory Committee for the establishment of Hong Kong.

He is the founding member of the largest pro-Beijing party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) from 1992 to 2003 and the 2nd President of the Legislative Council from 2008 to 2016.

In 1992 he founded the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong and first contested in the 1995 Legislative Council election in which he lost the race.

He later became a member of the CPPCC National Committee in 1993.

In the 1995 Legislative Council election, he ran in Kowloon Central but was defeated by the less known candidate Liu Sing-lee from the pro-democracy Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL).

He received around 16,000 votes, 43 per cent of the total vote share.

He was elected in Kowloon West in the first Legislative Council election after the handover of Hong Kong in 1998.

He was also the member of the Executive Council from 2002 to 2008.

He became the President of the Legislative Council in 2008.

He also expressed interest in running in the 2012 and 2017 Chief Executive elections but did not stand eventually.

Due to his relatively fair and accommodating presiding styles and his relatively liberal image within the pro-Beijing camp, he enjoyed high popularity within his last years before his retirement from the Legislative Council in 2016.