Ann Chiang


Ann Chiang Lai-wan, SBS, JP, is the chair of C&L Holdings and a pro-Beijing member of Hong Kong Legislative Council. She is the second daughter of Chiang Chen who is a Hong Kong entrepreneur.

Background

Chiang was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1993 to 2013.
In 2000, Chiang joined Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong and was appointed as the vice-chairman of the organisation in 2007. In 1981, she received a Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University. Since 2005, she has served as non-executive director in Elec & Eltek International Holdings and chairman of C&L Holdings.
Chiang was formerly a member of the Council of the City University of Hong Kong.
In 2012, Chiang was elected member of Member of Legislative Council and retained her seat in 2016.

Controversies

Though the Cantonese language is predominant in Hong Kong, Chiang took her 2016 oath of office in Mandarin Chinese. After the government sought to prevent localist candidates from taking office for not reading their oaths accurately, it was pointed out that Chiang had mispronounced several words in Mandarin, thus calling the validity of her oath into question.
In 2019, amidst the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, Chiang shared a video on her Facebook page alleging that Civil Human Rights Front convener Jimmy Sham had "never mentioned his sexual orientation," urging her supporters to share the video. Following complaints from LGBT activists, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the post had been removed for violating the social media platform's Community Standards. Chiang responded, "If you’ve already came out, then face it. Don’t easily complain someone’s attacking you, understood?" Sham stated that Chiang was incorrect as he had publicly identified himself as a member of LGBT activist group Rainbow Action and welcomed Facebook's deletion of the post.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong experienced a shortage of surgical masks. Chiang publicly advocated steaming masks to sterilise them for re-use by reposting a video from the Chinese broadcaster Guangzhou Broadcasting Network on Facebook demonstrating the practice. Centre for Health Protection controller Wong Ka-hing, a physician, rebuked Chiang's claim, while the centre warned Hong Kongers that surgical masks cannot be reused by steaming, and not to believe messages from "unreliable sources". Fellow legislator Helena Wong called on Chiang to step down as chairman of the Legislative Council's Panel on Health Services. In the face of widespread criticism and ridicule, Chiang stood by her claims, and claimed that medical workers who were infected with SARS in 2003 after re-using face masks would have been fine if they steamed them.