The strait-laced financier insists he is a Chinese patriot, a point underscored by his membership of a political advisory body to Beijing.

He will not touch questions about ending China's one-party rule and dismisses Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp, frequently a thorn in Beijing's side, as "radicals."

But the 62-year-old has been anything but a muted political appointee in recent years, railing against China's jailing and mistreatment of dissidents and arguing that the country's opaque justice system is in serious need of reform to prevent abuse by police and the courts.

"I am a Chinese first and foremost. I love my country," he said from a glitzy office in Hong Kong's financial core covered from floor to ceiling with articles he penned about the city's political freedoms and human rights.

"(But) I'm here to serve the people -- I do what's right. We have a duty to speak up for the people."

One such person is artist Ai Weiwei, who was locked up in April as part of a major government crackdown on dissent. The move followed online calls for demonstrations in China to emulate those that have rocked the Arab world.

Chinese officials have refused to reveal the whereabouts of Ai, who is being held for unspecified "economic crimes," sparking an outcry in the West and proving to Lew that "those in power have no concept of justice."

Lew's outspoken views have won him plenty of admirers in the former British colony which guarantees civil freedoms not seen in mainland China.

"People on the street are raising their thumbs at me and saying 'Way to go, you!' he said with a smile. It makes me happy."

However, his views have also put him on a collision course with Beijing and threaten to cost him his job as a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a largely toothless advisory body to the central government that Lew joined in 2008.

He regularly scolds Beijing's treatment of human rights activists in a Hong Kong newspaper column, describing the imprisonment of tainted milk activist Zhao Lianhai as "the injustice of the millennium".

Lew ran full-page advertisements in two Hong Kong newspapers last year to protest the jailing of Zhao -- whose son was among several hundred thousand made ill by tainted milk products in one of the country's worst public health scandals -- calling the verdict a "guilty verdict for the innocent."

The businessman made a proposal through the CPPCC that the district court that delivered a harsh ruling against Zhao should be held accountable for unlawful acts, a move credited as being partly responsible for the activist's subsequent release.

But Lew is equally critical of Hong Kong's own government for banning Tiananmen activists Wang Dan and Wu'er Kaixi from entering the city for democracy icon Szeto Wah's funeral in January.

Many top political figures in the city's pro-democracy movement regularly lash out at China's leaders.

But Lew -- who fled to Hong Kong from China in 1973 and later made a name for himself in the mergers and acquisitions business -- is performing a tough balancing act.

He says top Chinese officials are well aware of his past -- swimming for nine hours from the mainland to Hong Kong with only his bathing trunks -- describing his flight during a turbulent political period as "unique historical circumstances."

However, he does not have much time for lawmakers and activists who are calling for full democracy in his adopted home.

"They view Hong Kong as a quasi-independent state -- but in reality we are "one country, two systems," he said, referring to the semi-autonomous system under which Hong Kong returned to China.

Nor will he support calls by some activists for an end to China's one-party state, adding that "it is too sensitive for me to comment (further)."

But the outspoken Lew insists the spectacular rise of his native land must "be accompanied by a respect for freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, fairness, social justice and other universal values."

"Only then will the nation's rise be a blessing to its people and only then will it win the respect of the world," he said.

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