田北俊

English

James Tien Pei-chun (born 8 January 1947 in Shanghai, with family roots in Anhui) is a Hong Kong businessman and politician, known as Big Young Master Tien and awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star, the OBE and the rank of Justice of the Peace. Educated in Hong Kong and then in the United States, he took a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1968 and a master's at the University of San Jose in 1970, returning to run the family textile and garment business as chairman of the Manhattan Group. He is a member of the Tien Yuan-hao family; his younger brother Michael Tien was a Hong Kong deputy to the National People's Congress and a Legislative Council member. Appointed to the Kwai Tsing District Council in 1985 and to the Legislative Council by Governor David Wilson in 1988, he returned to the legislature in a 1993 by-election after the sudden death of the industrial legislator Cheung Kam-chuen, and later sat in the Provisional Legislative Council. In 1998 he was elected for the Commercial (First) functional constituency and from 1998 to 2008 chaired the Liberal Party. On 6 July 2003, having previously supported the National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill, he announced before its second reading that he would not support it and resigned from the Executive Council; without the Liberal Party's votes the bill could not pass, and Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa withdrew it in the early hours of 7 July, the defining episode of Tien's political career. In 2004 he switched to the directly elected New Territories East seat and won, lost his bid in 2008 and returned in 2012, serving until 2016. He chaired the Hong Kong Tourism Board from April 2007 to April 2013 and was a member of the 10th to 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. During the 2014 Umbrella Movement he said publicly that Leung Chun-ying should consider resigning; he was stripped of his CPPCC membership and resigned as Liberal Party leader. In 2020 he helped form the centrist Hope Alliance and left the Liberal Party in 2022.