Mr Zeman, who is known as the “father” of the Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district and is also chairman of Ocean Park, said he decided to become a naturalised Chinese because he had lived and worked in Hong Kong for 38 years and always considered the city his home.
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Zeman becomes Chinese citizen
Businessman gives up his Canadian passport
Paggie Leung
3 November 2008
Entrepreneur Allan Zeman has renounced his Canadian citizenship and has become a naturalised Chinese citizen.
Mr Zeman, who is known as the “father” of the Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district and is also chairman of Ocean Park, said he decided to become a naturalised Chinese because he had lived and worked in Hong Kong for 38 years and always considered the city his home.
He said he filed his application to surrender his Canadian passport as early as the end of last year, two months before a row erupted over the foreign citizenship of newly appointed undersecretaries and political assistants, adding that it was right that the five undersecretaries renounced their foreign nationality eventually.
“I think that if you are really working for the government, on behalf of the government, on behalf of Hong Kong citizens, you should have a local passport.”
Mr Zeman said the idea of obtaining Chinese nationality had been a quick decision to make and it came to him after he campaigned for former security secretary Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee in the Legislative Council by-election last year.
“It brought me into ... really the heart of politics in Hong Kong,” he said. “It’s time to really solidify my beliefs, and I really want to be a Hong Kong citizen. I want to be a local, a real local.”
The 60-year-old German-born Jewish entrepreneur said it had not been a difficult decision, having spent his adult and business life in Hong Kong.
“My family, my children are grown up here ... We have always considered Hong Kong as home,” he said, adding that he did not feel Canadian and had not been to that country for 10 years.
Mr Zeman is the first one in his family to renounce Canadian citizenship, and will leave it to his family members to decide whether they wish to follow suit.
He sits on government advisory committees, frequently offers help to mainland provincial governments, and is now entitled to take up more official roles and posts as a Chinese national.
“I’ve been asked many times: did you do this to become the chief executive or in order to be in Legco? ... No, I like what I am doing,” he said. “I can’t see myself being in Legco ... I think I can get a lot more done from where I sit.”
Mr Zeman said he probably would not be able to take up more public posts. “I sit on so many committees ... that you can almost say that I am like a private government official.” Official bodies he sits on include the Commission on Strategic Development, the Tourism Strategy Group and Urban Renewal Authority. He has just been appointed a member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority.
Asked whether he would like to be a local delegate to the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, he said: “If I was asked, I’d consider if it was something that I could contribute to ... I haven’t really thought about it but I guess if somebody asks me, I always could consider it.”
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