[2] He is an accountant who holds BBA and MBA degrees from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and has also studied at the Harvard Business School.

He was appointed the Secretary for Development and inducted into the CY Leung administration on 30 July 2012 to replace Mak Chai-kwong, who resigned earlier that month over a housing allowance fraud scandal.

As Development Secretary, Paul Chan is responsible for the Buildings Department, whose mission includes dealing with illegal structures.

Chan soon became embroiled in a scandal when his wife, Frieda Hui, through a company of which he was a former director, was found to own several properties that had been illegally subdivided.

After having been served rectification notices by the Building Department, Chan was quoted as saying that tenants partitioned the properties in breach of their leases.

[5] Ming Pao subsequently revealed that, between 1994 and 1996, Harvest Charm Development acquired a total of 10 old flats in Tai Kok Tsui and Jordan while both Chan and his wife Freida were directors.

[4] Chan gave a pledge that he and his wife would not make further investments in the property market, and would divest their shares in Harvest Charm Development, the company at the centre of the controversy.

[3][4][5] In July 2013, Chan was once again the subject of controversy when Apple Daily revealed that he or his family had an interest in a plot of land in Kwu Tung in the New Territories that the government had plans to develop.

An editorial in The Standard noted that, with the exception of Regina Ip, all other pro-establishment figures either remained silent or distanced themselves from Chan over the matter.

[8] Paul Chan, claiming to be the owner of a piece of land, collected rent in 1996 and issued a receipt to a villager that was using it to grow crops.

[14] In 2012 his wife Frieda Hui Po-ming sent a total of six e-mails between 1 and 16 December 2011 to the Chinese International School and about 10 fellow parents of year 13 pupils alleging that Jonathan Lu and his twin sister, Caitlin, had cheated in economics tests.

She wrote one more accusatory letter on 16 December, the day after the school had concluded a third investigation and had publicly issued a circular to all students of the findings.

[16][17] However, the plaintiffs successfully argued that Paul Chan was complicit in the attempted character assassination as he was co-signatory, his Legislative Council email address was copied on the correspondence.

[14] In October 2012, footage provided by Apple Daily showed someone who looked like Chan driving his car and crossing double white lines.

"[20] In March 2021, Chan claimed that it was "absolutely reasonable" that Beijing was planning to implement electoral changes to have only "patriots" serve in the government.

[22] In February 2021's budget announcement, Chan allocated HKD $8,000,000,000 for a "non-recurrent appropriation to a special fund to meet the expenditure for safeguarding national security".

[25] In July 2021, Xia Baolong stated that before 2049, "We expect Hong Kong society to be more harmonious and peaceful, and the housing problems that we are all concerned about will have been greatly improved.

[34] Chan and other government officials were criticized by Lew Mon-hung for "crossing the line" with his statements on Taiwan, as the Basic Law stipulates that diplomatic affairs of Hong Kong are to be handled by mainland China's Foreign Ministry.

[35][36] On 11 September 2022, Chan said in his blog that increasing the vaccination rate in Hong Kong would be key to reopening the border, without specifying percentages.

[43] Chan also admitted that Hong Kong had lost too many professionals, stating "We do acknowledge the loss of talent over the past half a year or more, but recently this is more worrying".

[42] On 27 September 2022, Chan said that talent will come back and remain with the city's "0+3" isolation format, and that "Authorities will provide maximum room for resumption of business connections and international activities while not undermining the protection of citizens from disease.

[54] Chan said that it was "more important to increase income" than cut expenses,[54] but also said that the city would not implement a vacancy tax on empty apartments.

[64] On 31 October 2022, Chan, while in Saudi Arabia with COVID-19, said in an address to Hong Kong FinTech Week that "I would really love to join you in person, but obviously the Arabian hospitality is keeping me away.

[69] There was no information in the report about Chief Executive John Lee's earlier pledge on 1 November 2022 that Chan would not be allowed any exemptions, and would have to isolate if he tested positive.

"[76] In April 2023, Chan announced the "Happy Hong Kong" program, and when asked about the effectiveness of the campaign, said it would be "pretty difficult to have a very well-defined numeric criteria to be established.

[82] On 3 July 2020, the Chinese official media, Xinhua news agent, stated that the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was formally established.