Tam Yiu-chung
In early May 2015, A US bipartisan delegation led by Matt Salmon, a Republican who chairs the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs with Republican Tom Emmer and Democrat Alan Lowenthal on a fact-finding mission visited Hong Kong to learn about developments in Hong Kong. They held meetings with Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and also legislators across the spectrum on the government's reform package, which pan-democrats have pledged to reject. Matt Salmon told leaders of the four pan-democratic parties, Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing, Civic Party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit, Labour Party chairman Lee Cheuk-yan and Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood lawmaker Frederick Fung Kin-kee, that a system where "people are elected by the people" was better than one in which leaders were chosen via a narrow constituency, saying that 'sometimes half a loaf is better than no loaf'. Lee said the congressmen had described the proposed chief executive election plan as "definitely not equal suffrage" and said they were not trying to convince the pan-democrats but to learn more about the reform debate. Fung said the congressmen had described the reform plan as not fully democratic but had stressed it was a decision for Hongkongers to make. Tam Yiu-chung, ex-chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong who also met the trio, read the congressmen's interest in compromise as a signal that they wanted to see the reform package passed.