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Kelvin Chan

Hong Kong-born George Lee is one of a record number of eight Chinese people competing for seats in Thursday's British general elections.
Winning a seat would provide Parliament with its first Chinese MP.
Others hoping for a place in the House of Commons are Anna Lo, Wu Kegang,  Merlene Toh Emerson, Philip Ling, Alex Lee Payton, Allan Siao Ming Witherick  and Stephen Shing.  
Lee, 48, a Conservative Party candidate, helped by a small band of volunteers, has been on the campaign trail canvassing shopkeepers in north London as the election looms.  
Hoping to persuade Tufnell Park shop owners to vote Tory because the party is supporting small businesses, he asked whether he could put up posters in their shop windows.
It 'would be a breakthrough for the Chinese community because it would be the first time they would have a role model and have a voice in British politics,' Lee said. 'But it would also be a breakthrough for Britain because there would be more understanding of the needs of the third-largest minority community in this country.' 
Britain's Chinese community, estimated at more than 400,000, is the country's fastest-growing minority group. But with only a smattering of local councillors, it  has no significant political representation. 
In the last election, in 2005, neither Labour nor the Conservatives fielded Chinese candidates, although the Liberal Democrats put up three. 
Chinese people have tended to stay out of politics in the past with many opting to run businesses such as takeaway restaurants across the country. Chinese people, too, live in many parts of the country and have not been able to form a powerful voting bloc because of this. 
About 30 per cent of Chinese people eligible to vote have not registered, according to an Electoral Commission report in 2005. That is second only to black African citizens with 37 per cent. The non-registration rate for white people is 6 per cent and 17 per cent for ethnic minorities as a whole. 
In the past it was proposed making it much harder for restaurant owners to employ skilled workers by imposing English-language requirements and subjecting owners to criminal penalties if they hired illegal immigrants. 
Things also began to change in 2007 when  Lo made headlines after being voted into the Northern Ireland Assembly as a representative for the cross-community Alliance party in South Belfast, becoming  the first Chinese person to be elected to a legislature in Europe.
This time, 59-year-old Lo is running for a parliamentary seat in the same constituency. Sweeping changes are expected in the  elections. As many as 350 new candidates could find seats in Westminster, more than half the total number available, say analysts.
They believe that voters have become fed up by the MPs expenses scandal that erupted last year and prompted some MPs not to run again. Others tarnished their reputations with unacceptable expenses claims.
In Liverpool, mainland-born Wu, 48, is joining Lee on a Conservative ticket. Originally from Guangdong province, he came to Britain in 1991 to get his PhD and stayed, working first as a university lecturer and then in Liverpool's chamber of commerce. Wu said his main reason for running for a seat was because he wanted to help Britain recover from the financial crisis that it has been caught up in. But he also wanted to serve as an example to other people in the Chinese community.
'In some cases there's a fear to politics; they seem to think politics will bite,' he said. 
Because of this, many Chinese people had been marginalised and found themselves on the political sidelines over the years.
He hopes 'the fact that I'm standing as the very first Chinese mainland-born candidate might have some impact on the Chinese community'. 
'If my participation can encourage a few more people to vote or stand in future it will only be a good thing for the mainstream and Chinese community to work together,' he said. 
The Liberal Democrats have the largest contingent of Chinese candidates with four -   Emerson, 49, a Singaporean-born corporate lawyer, and three British-born candidates with Chinese parents,  Ling, 29,  Payton, 36, and  Witherick, 31. Ling, Payton and Witherick are a generation younger than their peers, in their late twenties to mid-thirties. Emerson said they represent a generation of British-born Chinese coming of age in political life. 
'It's partly because the demographics have changed,' she said. 'Before, a lot of first-generation Chinese weren't interested in going into politics. 'This time around three of my colleagues are British-born and they feel very British. Politics is what they're interested in. 
'They're not standing as Chinese candidates, they're merely political candidates who happen to have a Chinese background.'
Indeed, Ling, Payton and Witherick all said they wanted to run because they hoped to make a difference or had enjoyed their previous political experiences. None of them said their ethnicity was a big deal to voters they  had talked to.
'To non-Chinese voters my ethnicity is not really an issue, which is a good thing,' said Ling, who works at a bank and whose parents immigrated from Hong Kong.
Witherick, a local government councillor, and Payton, a barrister, both have Chinese mothers who came to work in Britain. Witherick's mother is from Malaysia, Payton's from Singapore.
Rounding out the group is Hong Kong-born Shing, 55, who is running for a seat as an independent in Eastbourne on the southeastern English coast. 
Shing moved to the area in 1972, runs a takeaway restaurant and is already a local councillor, as are his wife and son. Back in London, Lee was working hard to overcome the initial frosty receptions he received from the shop owners, many of whom are, like him, immigrants. An elderly Cypriot couple running a sewing machine shop asked him what he would do about Cyprus. 
'A negotiated solution is the answer,' he replied. 
A Turkish woman working in a greasy spoon diner took him out to the street to complain about strict parking regulations. He listened intently, and tried to break the ice by telling her he spent three years working in Germany, where there is a big Turkish population. At the Eatzone Noodle House, he explained the Conservative party and its policies to the Malaysian-Chinese owner in a mixture of Cantonese and English. 
Across the street at the Sun Hing  takeout restaurant, the owners were glad to see him, pointing to a newspaper clipping of him they had already posted on the wall.
'I think public service is in my blood,' said Lee, who came to Britain as a nine-year-old in 1971 and began his career working at the Ministry of Defence before moving on to London's Metropolitan Police and then the corporate sector. 'I wanted to serve and it just so happens I was asked by the Conservative party' to run.
Whatever happens on election day, Christine Lee, a lawyer and founder of the British Chinese Project, who is not a candidate, said the candidates would gain invaluable campaign experience. 
'Whether they get in or not is not the most important thing, the most important is the participation, that they actually come out and be the candidate for the election,' she said. 'For their own experiences, they need to go through this.'
The Candidates
George Lee, 48, Conservative candidate in Holborn and St Pancras, London
Wu Kegang, 48, Conservative candidate in Liverpool Riverside   
Merlene Toh Emerson, 49, Liberal Democrat candidate in Hammersmith and Fulham, London  
Philip Ling, 29, Liberal Democrat candidate in Bromsgrove, Birmingham   
Allan Siao Ming Witherick,  31, Liberal Democrat candidate in Broxbourne,  Hertfordshire   
Alexander Lee Payton, 36, Liberal Democrat candidate in Havant, Hampshire   
Anna Lo, 59,  Alliance Party of Northern Ireland's  candidate in South Belfast   
Stephen Shing, 55, independent candidate in Eastbourne, East Sussex



The quest to have a Chinese voice in the British Parliament