Zhou Nan

Zhou Nan 周南
File:ZhouNan.jpg
7th Director of the Xinhua News Agency, Hong Kong
In office January, 1990 – July, 1997
Preceded by	Xu Jiatun
Succeeded by	Jiang Enzhu
Personal details
Born	200px (1927-12-20) December 20, 1927 Changchun, China
Died	200px
Resting place	200px
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse	Huang Guo
Parent	200px

Zhou Nan (Simplified Chinese: 周南; Pinyin: Zhōu Nán) is the former Director of the Hong Kong Branch of Xinhua News Agency, as well as the former Vice Minister of the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also a member of the Standing Committee of the 7th and 8th National People's Congress, Member of the 14th Central Committee of the CPC. He is best known as China's Chief negotiator during the negotiations for the Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong and Transfer of the sovereignty of Macau to China.

Early years and education

Born in December of 1927 in Changchun, Jilin Province, Zhou was born under the name of Gao Qinglian. He was the smallest of five children born to Gao Guozhu, the magistrate of Anda County in Heilongjiang Province (黑龙江安达县), and his second wife Wang Yunzhi. Just before the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the family moved to the city of Tianjin, where at age 14, Gao enrolled at Tianjin's Yaohua High School. Upon graduation, he attended Beijing University from 1944-1948, majoring in philosophy. In 1949, he was appointed Head of the English Department at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Early Political Career

In April 1946, Gao Qingzong formally entered the Communist Party of China under the nom de guerre (or Party name) "Zhou Nan", as all party members at the time were required to have aliases to protect themselves from Nationalist persecution. From then on, he made his name change official and became formally known as Zhou Nan. During the Korean War, Zhou served as the Chief of the Political Bureau of the People's Volunteer Army, and interrogated captured POW's. In 1951, he joined the Foreign Service and took up a post as the Third Secretary and later Second Secretary at the newly created Chinese Embassy in Pakistan. After serving in Pakistan for four years, Zhou returned to Beijing in 1955 as Section Chief of the Department of West Asian and North African Affairs. During the Cultural Revolution, He was later appointed First Secretary at the Chinese Embassy in Tanzania, where he served until 1973.

Career as Ambassador to the United Nations

In 1973, Zhou Nan became First Secretary and Councellor of the People's Republic of China's first ever delegation to the United Nations. He was made the PRC's official ambassador to the U.N. in 1981. After serving twelve years on the Chinese delegation, Zhou returned from New York in the 1983 to engage in preliminary talks with the British government regarding the return of the then British-owned Hong Kong to Chinese rule.

Career as Vice Foreign Minister

Zhou Nan was promoted to the office of Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984. His primary task was to spearhead the Chinese delegation to negotiate the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong with the British Foreign Ministry. Replacing his former superior Yao Guang, whose lack of progress the PRC government had become disenchanted with, Zhou remained in constant talks with the British delegation for 13 years until the official handover of Hong Kong in 1997. On September 26, 1984, Zhou Nan and British delegation head Sir Richard Evans signed the important UK-China Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The Joint Declaration promised Hong Kong's status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China after 1997, and allowed Hong Kong citizens to retain their rights and freedoms enjoyed under British rule.

Quotations about Zhou Nan

"Zhou was witty and urbane and liked to charm people by quoting classical Chinese poems. Although he wore old-fashioned glasses and drab Chinese-made suits, he spoke fluent English and was regarded as a sophisticated international diplomat. At the negotiating table, Zhou was tough, aggressive, even brutish. He was a ferocious negotiator who carried out instructions ruthlessly." - Mark Roberti, Asiaweek correspondent

"Intelligent, cultivated, a great man for quotations, whether in Chinese or English, a great man for toasts in maotai, [Zhou Nan] had acquired some of the Western habits of transacting business: it was even possible to get authoritative answers out of him by telephone; and he accelerated the delicate manoeuvres on the agenda for the talks." - Sir Percy Cradock, British Ambassador to China (1978 - 1984)