Regina Ip

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee (Chinese: 葉劉淑儀; née Lau; born 24 August 1950) is a Hong Kong politician. She is currently the Convenor of the Executive Council (ExCo) as well as the founder and current chairperson of the New People's Party. Ip served as a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) from 2008 to 2025, representing Hong Kong Island and Hong Kong Island West. She was formerly a prominent government official of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and was the first woman to be appointed the Secretary for Security to head the disciplinary service. She is also the founder and Chairwoman of Savantas Policy Institute, a think-tank in Hong Kong. Ip became a controversial figure for her role advocating the passage of the national security legislation to implement Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23, and after this legislation was withdrawn, she became the first principal official to resign from the administration of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. She took a sabbatical to study for a master's degree. She contested the 2007 Hong Kong Island by-election for the Legislative Council but was defeated by Anson Chan in the two-horse race. She ran again in the 2008 Legislative Council election and won, gaining a seat in the Hong Kong Island. She was re-elected in the 2012 and 2016 elections. Ip is widely known to have been keen on the Chief Executive top post. She ran in both 2012 and 2017 Chief Executive elections but did not secure a minimum number of 150 nominations from the 1,200-member Election Committee to enter the race on both occasions. In 2020, Larry Diamond, her supervisor at Stanford University, publicly criticized Ip's handling of the democracy movement and freedom of the press in Hong Kong.