Michael Hanson
Hong Kong press secretary
Michael "Mike" Hanson (born c. 1930s–1940s, Chinese: 韓新) is a Hong Kong press secretary, mostly remembered as the spin doctor and the head of Governor Chris Patten's war room from 1992 to 1994. He was responsible for promoting Patten's controversial 1994 Hong Kong electoral reform, which became a political storm that eventually hampered a smooth handover of Hong Kong to China. Hanson is also remembered by the public and the media for being the first official to introduce political PR into the government and for being the government's refugee co-ordinator of
Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong.
Hanson was the head of political public relations of the British Hong Kong government (1991 - October 1994). In addition, he took the role as the personal press secretary of Chris Patten (1992 - October 1994), the last Governor of British Hong Kong.
Early career in British civil service
Hanson born in a working-class background of a northern English coal-mining family. Hanson joined Her Majesty's Civil Service in 1974 serving in HM Customs and Excise, the parliamentary commissioner's office and on secondment, via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the British Hong Kong Government. He was sent to Hong Kong from the 1980s to the 1990s. After returning to the UK Hanson became director general, benefits and credits at HM Revenue & Customs.
The public source identifies “Michael Hanson” as hong Kong press secretary. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Hanson and Hong.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Hanson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.