Cheong U: from first Commissioner Against Corruption to Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture — two decades of post-Handover integrity and welfare

Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR (20 December 2009 – 20 December 2014), after serving as the SAR's first Commissioner Against Corruption (20 December 1999 – 20 December 2009). Born in 1957 and a public-administration professional, he holds a bachelor's degree in administration from the University of Macau (formerly the University of East Asia) and a Master of Public Administration from Zhongshan University in Guangzhou. Before the Handover he sat on Macao's Municipal Council and the Islands Municipal Council, was deputy secretary-general of the Macau Association of Public Administration, and served on the Selection Committee for the first SAR government. He was a principal official for fifteen years across the Edmund Ho and Fernando Chui administrations — ten as integrity chief, five running the social-and-culture portfolio covering education, health, culture, sport, social welfare, and tourism.

From the SAR's first integrity report to the University of Macau's Hengqin campus, the World Heritage city centre, and an expanding welfare state — Cheong U spent fifteen years first holding the integrity line in the early years of the SAR, then steering the rapid expansion of Macao's social-and-welfare sphere.

Cheong U is the former Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR (20 December 2009 – 20 December 2014), and before that the SAR's first Commissioner Against Corruption (1999–2009). A public-administration professional with an MPA from Zhongshan University, he was a principal official for fifteen years across the Edmund Ho and Fernando Chui administrations — ten in integrity, five in welfare — one of the few post-Handover officials to lead two entirely distinct policy spines.