Sir Richard Mark Evans (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: 伊文思爵士, 15 April 1928 – 24 August 2012) was a British diplomat who was the ambassador to the People's Republic of China from January 1984 to May 1988, during which he and

Zhou Nan Zhou Nan () was a prominent Chinese politician and diplomat, and served as Director of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, Vice Minister of the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador to the United Nations. He ...

, the

representative, initialed the

Sino-British Joint Declaration The Sino-British Joint Declaration is a treaty between the governments of the United Kingdom and China signed in 1984 setting the conditions in which Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control and for the governance of the territory after ...

on 26 September 1984.

Education

Evans was educated at

Repton School Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, independent, day and boarding school in the English public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England. Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school whi ...

, a boarding independent school for boys in the village of Repton in Derbyshire, followed by Magdalen College, Oxford.

Life and career

Evans joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Foreign Office in 1952. Before becoming ambassador to China, he had stationed in the British charge d'affaires office in Beijing, Peking twice from 1955 to 1957 and from 1962 to 1964. During his ambassadorship, he also acted as the chief representative of the British delegation from the eighth to the twenty-second round of Sino-British negotiations over the Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, sovereignty issue of Hong Kong. In fact, much of the core negotiations had been done by his predecessor Percy Cradock, Sir Percy Cradock and therefore, the major mission of Evans and his team was to draft the clauses of the Joint Declaration with their Chinese counterparts within the limited timeframe. The series of negotiations ultimately resulted in the formal signing of the Joint Declaration by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Premier of the People's Republic of China, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang in Peking on 19 December 1984, a treaty confirming the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Evans later participated in arranging a number of high-ranking official visits between the two nations. One of them was the historic visit of Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II to China in October 1986. In retirement, he wrote a biography of Chinese national leader Deng Xiaoping. It was published in 1993 and was translated into Japanese language, Japanese, Chinese language, Chinese, Thai language, Thai, Hungarian language, Hungarian and other languages.

Honors

* Order of St Michael and St George, 1983

References

External links

*
Sir Richard Evans
, ''Daily Telegraph'', 28 August 2012. *
Former UK envoy Sir Richard Evans, who was key in HK's handover, dies
, ''South China Morning Post'', 30 August 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Sir Richard 1928 births 2012 deaths Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order British biographers Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to China Members of HM Diplomatic Service People educated at Repton School Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford 20th-century British diplomats