ACTING Governor Anson Chan Fang On-sang has been nominated as one of the 21 most powerful women in Asia. Mrs Chan and the 20 others were said to control vast business empires, have the authority to shape government policies and have influence over how people think and what they believe. Others included on Asiaweek magazine's list were local media magnate Sally Aw Sian; China's foreign trade minister Wu Yi; Burmese democracy figher Aung San Suu Kyi; and Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's Prime Minister. The magazine's managing editor, Salman Wayne Morrison, said Mrs Chan was chosen because she was the highest-ranking ethnic Chinese in the Government. She has commanded great respect from the corridors of business and government and has frequently been mentioned as a potential chief executive in Hong Kong after 1997, the magazine said in its September 1 edition. Mrs Chan was quoted as saying: 'I am Chinese through and through. I want to see China succeed. But I also want to see Hong Kong succeed.' Mrs Chan, tipped as a front-runner for the top post in the Special Administrative Region, has never denied she was interested in moving further in her political career. Although the right-hand woman of Governor Chris Patten, she has managed recently to mend fences with China after her secret trip to Beijing. Yesterday, however, a vice-director of the local branch of Xinhua (the New China News Agency), Zhang Junsheng, sought to play down her forthcoming trip to the central province of Anhui - her second to mainland cities in two months. Mr Zhang said Mrs Chan was invited by the local government because of her family background. At the invitation of the provincial People's Political Consultative Conference, Mrs Chan will attend the Saturday showing of a film that depicts the life of her grandfather, General Fang Zhenwu, a national hero during the anti-Japanese war. The show will follow a morning visit by a delegation of the Fang family to the home town of the late General Fang and a technical school named after him on the outskirts of Hefei. A source close to Mrs Chan said she was anxious to stick to the unofficial nature of her home-bound trip. None of her close aides will travel with the family. In anticipation of the heavy presence of local media, the source said Mrs Chan had asked her uncle, Dr Harry Fang, to act as the family spokesman. Her mother and husband will not be going.
