Regina Ip

Education and civil service career

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee was born in 1950. She took a first-class BA at the University of Hong Kong, an MLitt at the University of Glasgow, and master’s degrees in management and East Asian studies at Stanford University. According to the government’s 1998 biographical note, she joined the Administrative Service in September 1975 and served in the Civil Service Branch, Home Affairs Department, New Territories Administration, Security Branch, Trade Department, Chief Secretary’s Office and Trade and Industry Branch; she was Deputy Director of Administration from 1990 to 1993 and Deputy Secretary for Trade and Industry from 1993 to 1995, became Director-General of Industry in September 1995 and Director of Immigration in August 1996 — the first woman to head a disciplined service. After the handover in July 1997 she was appointed Director of Immigration of the SAR.

According to Stanford magazine in 2007, she served on several Sino-British expert panels before the handover, leading the Right of Abode Expert Group just before it; on handover night she attended the British forces’ farewell parade and the handover ceremony as Director of Immigration and changed her uniform from the British to the SAR design.

Secretary for Security

On 27 July 1998 the government announced that the Central People’s Government, on the Chief Executive’s nomination, had appointed Ip to succeed Peter Lai as Secretary for Security; she took office on 31 August and served until 2003, responsible for the police, fire services, corrections, immigration and customs. After the Court of Final Appeal’s January 1999 ruling on the right of abode of mainland-born children, the government asked the NPC Standing Committee to interpret the Basic Law, and the Committee’s interpretation that year overturned parts of the ruling. Ip told Stanford magazine that otherwise “Hong Kong would have been inundated by over a million mainlanders seeking right of abode,” with far higher unemployment; democrats said the move undermined the Court of Final Appeal.

In 2003, as Secretary for Security, she promoted the Article 23 national security legislation (see “The 1 July 2003 March and the Withdrawal of Hong Kong’s Article 23 Bill”). Stanford magazine recounts that some of her remarks during the campaign caused controversy, including one about Hitler having come to power through universal suffrage, which she later said was “oversimplified and distorted.” After the march the bill was deferred, and on 16 July she announced her resignation, saying she had given notice on 25 June, that her decision was “entirely due to personal reasons,” and that she deeply regretted the legislation was not completed as scheduled. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa called her performance “most outstanding.” She later told Stanford magazine: “Under my watch, there was no infringement of rights and freedoms in my five years.”

Stanford and a return to politics

According to her official biography, she left the government to take her daughter to the United States for school and to study at Stanford, returning to Hong Kong in June 2006 after completing an MA in East Asian Studies; in July 2006 she founded the Savantas Policy Institute, a think tank on Hong Kong’s constitutional and economic problems. At Stanford she studied with the Hoover Institution’s Larry Diamond, and Stanford magazine says she came to see a practical need for democracy in Hong Kong. In the December 2007 Legislative Council by-election on Hong Kong Island she ran with pro-establishment support against the former Chief Secretary Anson Chan, who won.

In September 2008 she was elected to the Legislative Council for Hong Kong Island, and was re-elected in 2012, 2016 and 2021. In January 2011 she founded the New People’s Party and became its chairperson, and in September 2015 she founded the Maritime Silk Road Society, of which she is co-chair.

The Executive Council and the chief executive races

In October 2012 Chief Executive C. Y. Leung appointed her and Jeffrey Lam non-official members of the Executive Council. She ran for chief executive twice, in 2012 and 2017. She resigned from the Executive Council in December 2016 to run, and on 1 March 2017, before nominations closed, withdrew, saying she had “received far fewer nominations than the 150 needed” and felt “squeezed out” in a system of 1,200 electors with four pro-establishment candidates. Carrie Lam reappointed her to the Executive Council in July 2017.

In June 2022 Chief Executive-elect John Lee named her Convenor of the non-official members of the new Executive Council from 1 July. In October 2025 she announced that she would not seek re-election to the Legislative Council, ending 17 years as a legislator, but said she was “not retiring” and would continue her Executive Council and think-tank work. As of 2026 she remained Convenor of the Executive Council.