Tsang: Not just any Chinese bureaucrat
From CNN Correspondent Martin Soong
 |  A media throng trails Donald Tsang in Hong Kong Thursday. |
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 Hong Kong's first leader since the handover, Tung Chee-hwa, announced he is leaving office with two years remaining in his term. He cites nonspecific health issues (March 10)
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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- He was overlooked for the top job in 1997, but now Donald Tsang has been tapped to take the helm of China's freewheeling territory, Hong Kong -- at least temporarily.
With the leadership of Hong Kong's unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa coming to a premature end, Tung's deputy has stepped into the breech and will steer a taskforce studying ways to elect the next chief executive in 2007.
Tsang doesn't fit the mould of Chinese bureaucrat, and it is not just the trademark bowties and long scarves he wraps around his neck.
The Harvard-educated Tsang is one of a handful of Hong Kongers who has received a knighthood -- for his service during British colonial rule.
The son of a policeman, he is also a devout Catholic, even as Beijing is increasingly aggravated by calls for more democracy from the territory's Catholic church
But the 60-year-old has a record of getting things done, and that is perhaps why he was named acting chief executive for Hong Kong following Tung's resignation Thursday.
Tsang has worked for the government for 38 years -- he has been the territory's treasury secretary, financial secretary, along with head of the civil service -- and has a reputation of being a pragmatist with a record of getting things done.
As the first Chinese financial secretary after 150 years of British rule, he steered the territory of 6.8 million people through the Asian financial crisis, making a controversial decision in 1998 to intervene in the territory's markets to support the Hong Kong dollar.
In 2001 he was appointed to chief secretary, leading Hong Kong's 180,000-strong civil service, and polls suggest he is popular with residents.
The opera lover who is married with two sons also has supporters in big business, an important constituency in Hong Kong.
Casino magnate Stanley Ho and infrastructure tycoon Gordon Wu have both spoken in support of Tsang.
He was overlooked for the top job in 1997 because, observers say, he was perceived as too close to the outgoing British administration. Now he better fits China's priorities after the often-turbulent rule of Tung, as Beijing counts on its core civil service for stability.
One of the most senior holdovers from Hong Kong's former British colonial administration, he will have to balance competing demands from Beijing, Hong Kong's vocal political lobbyists and powerful business interests in the territory.
"In Donald Tsang, we have a man with an extremely good mind, a tough and honest and honorable negotiator, who'll always do his best for the people of Hong Kong," the territory's last British governor, Chris Patten, said in 1995.
