Third Side is a

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

which claims to offer a "third road" to democracy, positioned between the

pro-democracy camp The pro-democracy camp, also known as the pan-democracy camp, is a political alignment in Hong Kong that supports increased democracy, namely the universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council as given by the Basic L ...

and the

pro-Beijing camp The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp, pro-government camp or pro-China camp refers to a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Beijing central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) t ...

. It is led by

Tik Chi-yuen Tik Chi-yuen () is a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and of North District Council. He is a registered social worker and chairman of the small centrist Third Side party, which he co-founded in 2015, after quitting the Democratic Part ...

, who was a co-founder and longtime member of the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

until his expulsion in 2015 for promoting political reforms proposed by the Chinese central government.

History

Third Side is led by chairman

, the former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party, and vice-convenor

Wong Sing-chi Nelson Wong Sing-chi (born 11 October 1957) is a Hong Kong politician and social worker. He had been member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong between 2000–04 and 2008–12. He was the founding member of the Democratic Party before he ...

, a former Democrat legislator. Wong was expelled by the Democrats in July 2015 for urging legislators to accept the Beijing-decreed political reform package. Tik subsequently quit in September, citing differences on the pursuit of democracy. The party's 20-member preparatory committee included former Democrats Chan Ka-wai and Chow Yick-hay, and

Centaline Property Agency Centaline Property Agency Limited is one of the largest property agencies in Hong Kong. It was established in 1978 by Shih Wing-ching. Centaline has nearly 40,000 employees and more than 2,000 offices in 39 cities in Mainland China, Hong Kong an ...

co-founder

Shih Wing-ching Shih Wing-ching (; born 17 March 1949 in Shanghai) is a Hong Kong businessman. His family are from Ningbo in Zhejiang province but he came to Hong Kong at an early age. In 1978 he established Centaline Property Agency Limited, which is now ...

, who was also from

Path of Democracy Path of Democracy ( zh, t=民主思路) is a political group and think tank established in 2015 in Hong Kong. It is led by former Civic Party legislator Ronny Tong, who joined the Executive Council on 1 July 2017. Although officially unaligned ...

, the think tank set up by fellow moderate and former

Civic Party The Civic Party (CP) is a pro-democracy liberal political party in Hong Kong. It is currently chaired by barrister Alan Leong. The party was formed in 2006 on the basis of the Basic Law Article 45 Concern Group, which was derived from the ...

legislator

Ronny Tong Ka-wah Ronny Tong Ka-wah, SC KC (; born 28 August 1950 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong Senior Counsel and politician. He is a current non-official member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong. He co-founded the Civic Party and was a member of the Legisl ...

. Others included

Hung Fook Tong Hung Fook Tong () is a chain of herbal tea shops based in Hong Kong, specializing in Chinese Chinese herb teas, soups, healthy food and guilinggao ''Guilinggao'' (), also known as tortoise jelly (though not technically correct) or turtle ...

executive director Ricky Szeto Wing-fu and

Shue Yan University Hong Kong Shue Yan University (HKSYU or SYU) is a private liberal-arts university on Braemar Hill, North Point, Hong Kong. Founded in 1971 as Hong Kong Shue Yan College () by Henry Hu and Chung Chi-yung, it was unilaterally recognised as the ...

associate professor Lee Shu-kam. The party was inaugurated at a 7 January ceremony.

was a candidate in the legislative by-election in early 2016, but lost the race by coming in the fifth place. After the by-election, the party once considered filling candidates in the 2016 legislative election. And yet, on 22 July 2016, ten members of the Third Side quit which included two vice-chairmen Marcus Liu Tim-shing and Ben Kuen Ping-yiu, who were all part of the team that was going to run in the New Territories East constituency. They stated that the party had fallen short of their expectation to forge a new brand of politics perched between the two traditional blocs. The party argued that their departure was due to the party's decision not to field any candidates in New Territories East in the upcoming election. The party failed to win any seat in the election. On 19 December 2017, Macau denied entry to Third Side member Wong Chun-long for security reasons despite inviting him to attend a conference on Macau's finance and information technology sectors. In December 2021, it was reported that Wong Chun-long, Third Side candidate in the New Territories North West constituency in that month's LegCo election, had posed as a young girl on online discussion forum

LIHKG LIHKG ( zh, t=連登, cy=Lìhn dāng) is a multi-category forum website based in Hong Kong. The website has gained popularity since the launch in 2016, and is often referred to as the Hong Kong version of Reddit. Threads with more up-votes and r ...

. Wong started a political debate under the name "Little Sister" while claiming to be part of the "yellow" (pro-democracy) camp.

Stances

In initial stage, Third Side was considered as a "middle-of-the-road" political group between the pro-democracy camp and pro-Beijing camp. and had a direct competition with pro-democracy

Alvin Yeung Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu (, born 5 June 1981) is a barrister and politician in Hong Kong. He is the former Leader of the Civic Party and former member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, representing New Territories East after winning the 201 ...

and pro-Beijing

Holden Chow Holden Chow Ho-ding (; born 7 June 1979) is a Hong Kong solicitor and politician. He is vice-chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest pro-Beijing camp, pro-Beijing party in Hong Kong, ...

in the 2016 New Territories East by-election. However, during

2016 Hong Kong legislative election Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * '' Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film ...

, it was reported that pro-Beijing camp once considered allocating votes to

, who was running in the election in the Kowloon West constituency in the hope of defeating pro-democracy and localist candidates. In the

November 2018 Kowloon West by-election The 2018 Kowloon West by-election was held on 25 November 2018 after the incumbent pro-democracy Legislative Councillor Lau Siu-lai of Kowloon West was disqualified from the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) after the oath-taking controv ...

, Tik endorsed pro-Beijing candidate Chan Hoi-yan together with other pro-Beijing politicians. Third Side is considered the sole non-establishment party in the Legislative Council (LegCo) following the 2021 legislative election, in which Tik was elected to the Social Welfare constituency. Tik did not join the other 89 LegCo member-elects in calling for an investigation into the pro-democracy media outlet ''

Stand News ''Stand News'' ( zh, t=立場新聞) was a free non-profit online news website based in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2021. Founded in December 2014, it was the successor of ''House News''. It primarily focused on social and political issues in Hong ...

'' after police raided its offices on 29 December 2021. However, on 16 February 2022, Tik, along with the other 89 members of the LegCo, made a statement of gratitude to

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

general secretary

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...

for his "guidance" in fighting the

COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong The COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Hong Kong on 23 January 2020. Con ...

Performance in elections

Legislative council elections

District Council elections

References

External links

Third Side Website
{{Hong Kong political parties 2015 establishments in Hong Kong Political parties established in 2015 Political parties in Hong Kong Think tanks based in Hong Kong