Liberal Party (Hong Kong)

Liberal Party (自由黨) is a political party in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China. The party is known for its conservative and business-friendly policies. Although not a libertarian party in the traditional sense due to its wishy-washy support of protecting civil liberties, the Hong Kong Liberal Party is an example of a successful political party with libertarian economic policies such as the opposition of a minimum wage, collective bargaining, and antitrust legislation. The party also supports limited government, low taxes, and a high degree of economic freedom.

In July 6 2003, James Tien Pei Chun the leader of Liberal Party resigned from the Executive Council of Hong Kong and forced the government to delay the second reading of the legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law. It was a sharp turn from his usual pro-government policy and was praised as heroic in temporarily relaxing a big conflict between the government and the pro-democracy camp supporters.

However, at almost the same time, Liberal Party decided to change its policy from "all Legislation members should be directly elected in 2007" to "Hong Kong should become more democratic." The founder and ex-chair of Liberal Party, Allen Lee Peng Fei, decided to leave the party since he believed the change was against public sentiments. Their stance in universal suffrage is similar to that of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB); namely, universal suffrage should be implemented on or after 2012 rather than 2007/8.

The Liberal Party saw its greatest success in the 2004 Legislative Council elections. With its success in gaining seats from the geographical constituencies through direct elections while retaining those seats in the functional constituencies, the party had its number of seats increased from seven (in 2000 elections) to ten, overtaking the Democratic Party for the first time to become the second-largest political party in the legislature.

List of its chairmen:

**Liberal Party**
Liberal Party Logo Liberal Party Logo
Chairman:	James Tien
Founded:	1993
Headquarters:	4/F Henley Building, 5 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong
District Councillors	27
Legislative Councillors	10
Political ideology:	capitalism
Website:	Liberal Party