A barrister in his thirties, Alex Fan Hoi-kit — now months into his first-ever term as a legislator of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region — said his special bonds with the legislative chamber date back a long time.

In 2008, Fan, still an undergraduate and fresh from leading the Hong Kong Association of Outstanding Students (HKAOS), started a model Legislative Council (LegCo) for local secondary students, which runs — almost annually — over a dozen sessions of simulated legislator exchanges, community visits, mock debates, and tours of the authentic LegCo building.

In an exclusive interview, Fan told China Daily that his HKAOS presidency and the model LegCo project kindled within him an unalloyed keenness for “peer-to-peer inspiration”, social engagement and public works, and that his experiences in these areas have convinced him of the merits of sticking to a particular habit — that of identifying issues and attempting to make changes that will bring about improvements across the varied registers of his life.

And Fan said he believes his now triadic roles — as legislator, barrister and amateur musician — provide a fitting opportunity to “realize” his years of work, particularly in enhancing Hong Kong’s positioning as an international arbitration center and augmenting art education.

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The legislator’s role, he understands, demands an “elevated vantage over the entire pitch”. But as an inside player in the legal sphere, Fan said he is “able to siphon firsthand industry experience and expertise into lawmaking” — and that, he believes, is a rare skill within the city’s legislature.

At university, Fan chose a law major. He was called to the Bar in 2013 and cut his teeth at the Department of Justice before moving into the private sphere.

Now his purview as an arbitrator spans multiple Chinese mainland cities. Since 2020, he has been president of the Hainan International Arbitration Court.

Fan felt a new pulse when the International Organization for Mediation launched its permanent headquarters in Hong Kong on Oct 20, 2025 — the world’s first intergovernmental body dedicated solely to mediation, backed already by over 30 signatories.

His current legislative priority, he said, is to suggest to the government and stakeholders to replicate the model by making Hong Kong the host of a regional intergovernmental arbitration body, likely starting with an international arbitration court for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

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Fan understands firsthand what singled the city out as a rare stronghold for arbitration, particularly in foreign-related and international disputes.

Hong Kong is the world’s only common law jurisdiction with Chinese and English as its official languages, and the sole common law frontier of the Chinese nation — a duality that threads it into the wider common law fabric “with a competitive streak”, he said.

The city’s robust judicial independence also lends local courts international credibility, along with a solid record of seeing its arbitration rulings enforced overseas.

Then there’s Hong Kong’s name — whispered in boardrooms, familiar across industries, the first city to come to mind when disputes call for a neutral arbitration seat.

For such an intergovernmental body, Fan said the Hong Kong side must first assemble a detailed bid — site, financing and more — to win the central government’s support. He said he intends to move this through his legislative inquiries and motions.

Still, Fan loses no time in sketching out what his ideal of a good legislator is. “Practitioner” is too specific — if not unrealistic — to describe a legislator meant to advance Hong Kong across sectors, he said. Instead, he prefers “partaker”, as it embeds possible capacities and a broader kind of engagement.

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His musical biography offers annotation. Never quite claiming the label of music practitioner — despite having been at the pipe organ for over two decades with a performance diploma hanging somewhere as proof — Fan prides himself instead on being a regular, appreciative and astute audience member, a partaker no less, in support of the music industry.

Now, as a legislator, he also plans to improve the prospects of the city’s arts and culture industry by fostering a citywide “audienceship” buoyed by “a more artistically discerning public”. His now easier reach into government, schools, and other related networks, Fan believes, can help augment arts education across Hong Kong, and in doing so, materialize that audience rapport.

“Hong Kong needs artists, yes, but it needs, even more, audiences who know how to appreciate them, who, across all walks of life, hold the potential to evolve into sponsors, into people who will invest in the arts.”

Fan sets his sights on teaming-up with the Education Bureau to reorient the local arts curriculum as less a conveyor belt for would‑be stage stars, more a workshop for audiences — young people steeped in artistic rudiments and developing a disposition to value creativity.

He adds that he’s also looking for opportunities to work with the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau to take similar educational initiatives into the community to foster “audienceship” at scale.

Asked what makes a good concertgoer, Fan pictures someone who wholeheartedly supports, attentively listens, and savors resonance in the interplay of sounds.

As a legislator, he endeavors to adopt a comparable posture: “To be observant, multi-perspectival, open to mixed views, and eager to deliver inventive policymaking for win-win outcomes.”

“Even when I started the mock LegCo, there wasn’t the thought of me becoming a lawmaker,” Fan says. Now, when youngsters confide political ambitions, Fan offers encouragement, but also the ethics of a partaker.

“You can speak for Hong Kong in and out of the LegCo chamber, in many roles, from any walks of life,” he always tells them.

Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com