About Donald Tsang
Sir Donald Tsang Yam-kuen (Chinese: 曾蔭權; born 7 October 1944) is a former Hong Kong civil servant who served as the second Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2005 to 2012. Tsang joined the colonial civil service as an Executive Officer in 1967, occupying various positions in local administration, finance and trade before he was appointed Financial Secretary of Hong Kong in 1995, becoming the first ethnic Chinese to hold the position under British administration. He continued to serve in the Hong Kong SAR government after 1997 and gained his reputation internationally for his intervention in Hong Kong's stock market in defending the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Tsang became the Chief Secretary for Administration in 2001 and ran for the Chief Executive office in 2005 after the incumbent Tung Chee-hwa resigned. He served the remaining term of Tung and was re-elected in 2007. He served a full five-year term until he stepped down in 2012. In his seven years of term, he proposed two constitutional reforms in 2005 and 2010 and saw the second ones passed after he reached a compromise with the pro-democracy legislators, making them the first and only political reform proposals to be passed in the SAR history. He carried out a five-year policy blueprint and ten large-scale infrastructure projects during his term. His popularity began to decline after the introduction of the Political Appointments System which was marked by controversies and scandals. In the last months of his term, Tsang was embroiled in various corruption allegations. He was subsequently charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption and found guilty of one count of misconduct in public office in February 2017 and was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment, becoming the highest officeholder in Hong Kong history to be convicted and imprisoned. His name was later cleared when the Court of Final Appeal unanimously quashed his conviction and sentence in June 2019, on the ground that the trial judge had misdirected the jury. In September 1995, Tsang was appointed Financial Secretary, becoming the first Chinese to hold the position in 150 years of colonial history. Tsang was known for his role in defending the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar during the 1997 Asian financial crisis in 1998 from attacks by hedge funds led by George Soros who he dubbed "crocodiles".
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.