Founded in 1993 on the basis of the Co-operative Resources Centre, the Liberal Party was founded by a group of conservative politicians, businessmen and professionals who were either appointed by the colonial governor or indirectly elected through the trade-based functional constituencies, to counter the liberal United Democrats of Hong Kong who emerged from the first Legislative Council direct election in 1991.

Led by Allen Lee, the party adopted a friendly approach with the Beijing authorities to oppose last governor Chris Patten's constitutional reform proposal in the final colonial years.

Enjoyed by the advantage in the narrowly-franchised functional constituencies, the Liberals remained a major party and a governing ally of the SAR administration in the early post-handover era, despite its chairman Allen Lee's failed attempt in the direct election.

The Liberal popularity rose to its peak in 2003 when party chairman James Tien broke away from the government to voice against the Basic Law Article 23 which eventually brought down the proposed bill.

[6] Some members of Tien's moderate faction founded the Hope for Hong Kong organisation to explore a middle ground between the pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps.

Formed by businessmen and tycoons from various business sectors in Hong Kong, the Liberal Party is considered conservative and pro-business.

The Liberals also support limited government, low taxes, a high degree of economic freedom and uphold the interests of small and medium enterprises.

Many of its members are from professionals, the merchant and business sectors and see preserving the current state of economic freedom as most advantageous for Hong Kong as a whole.

[9] Its chairman James Tien's resignation from the Executive Council in 2003 forced the government to back down from legislation of Article 23 of the Basic Law, which ultimately accelerated the downfall of the Tung Chee-hwa administration.

[12] Led by the Senior Unofficial Member Allen Lee and his fellow LegCo colleagues, Steven Poon, Selina Chow and Stephen Cheong, 12 legislators appointed by the British colonial government and 8 legislators indirectly elected by the functional constituencies aligned themselves and formed the CRC as a think tank, research unit and brain trust for a future political group.

The party was originally considered close to the British colonial administration in part due to its scepticism of expanding universal suffrage, but wishing to see a smooth transition of sovereignty over Hong Kong, the Liberal Party strongly opposed Governor Chris Patten's democratic reform as it was seen as a violation Sino-British Joint Declaration by the PRC government and began to align itself more to the pro-Beijing camp as a result.

The Liberal Party offered an amendment to the reform package known as the "1994 Plan" which was supported by Beijing, but this was defeated in the legislative council.

In January 1996, Allen Lee, Lau Wong-fat, Howard Young and Ngai Shiu-kit were invited by the Beijing government to the Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong SAR.

In September 2000, Miriam Lau became party's vice-chairwoman after Ronald Arcullli announced that he would not run in the next legislative council elections and resigned as vice-chairman.

[18] In July 2002 when chief executive Tung Chee-hwa carried out the Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS) in the beginning of his second term.

[20] At almost the same time, the Liberal Party shifted its stance on political development from "all Legislative Council members should be directly elected in 2007" to "Hong Kong should become more democratic."

[21] On 13 January 2006, the Liberal Party opposed Donald Tsang's plan to implement a five-day working week for most civil servants, due to concerns that this would put too much pressure on small to medium-sized enterprises to follow suit.

[23] There were recriminations when Chow blamed the loss of her seat on Heung Yee Kuk chairman and Liberal Party member Lau Wong-fat for canvassing for the DAB during the elections.

[26] To project its "conscionable employer" image, the party suggested that the statutory minimum wage should be HK$24 an hour and made a clean break with Cheung.

[32] In October 2013, the Liberal Party even joined the pan-democrats in signing a petition to urge the Leung administration to re-consider its decision to not give a free-to-air TV license to Hong Kong Television Network.

Following a three-month period with Vincent Fang as acting chairman, on 15 December 2012, Selina Chow was elected chairperson, unopposed.

[37] Tien and Selina Chow joined Miriam Lau to become the honorary chairmen in the following leadership election on 1 December while Vincent Fang and Felix Chung became the new Leader and chairman respectively and Eastern District Councillor Peter Shiu became the party's vice-chairman.

Although failing in ousting BPA's Jeffrey Lam in Commercial (First), the Liberals retained other four trade-based functional constituencies with vice-chairman Peter Shiu succeeded the retiring party leader Vincent Fang's Wholesale and Retail seat.

The party's New Territories West candidate Ken Chow Wing-kan announced he would withdraw from the race before the election due to an "external force" threatened him and his family.

After the 9 June protest which drew over a million people marching in the streets as the organisers claimed, the Carrie Lam administration issued a statement it was determined to resume the debate on the bill in the legislative council.

On 8 July when the government finally backed down as Carrie Lam declared the bill was dead, James Tien and three other honorary chairmen of the party, Selina Chow, Miriam Lau and Vincent Fang called on Tommy Cheung who was an executive councillor at Lam's cabinet to resign as he failed to relay public opposition to the bill, but was refused by Cheung.

[45][46] In 2020, members of the moderate Tien faction also announced the foundation of the Hope for Hong Kong organisation after accusing the Liberal Party's leadership of growing too close to Beijing which aimed to explore a middle ground between the pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps.

[47] In the 2021 legislative election, Felix Chung, member of the Tien faction, was defeated in his constituency of Textiles and Garment after the revamp of the electoral system, while the party retained a total of 4 seats in the parliament.

On 10 August 2022, three honorary chairpersons, James Tien, Miriam Lau, and Selina Chow, who supported non-establishment candidate in the last year's election, decided to resign and quit the party to protest after the Central Committee discussed removing the titles without consulting them.

[52] The shake-up of the party leadership marked the end of the Tien era, whose moderate faction started to lose power after Carrie Lam became leader and the defeat of Chung.