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an intractable problem inherited from the past can be solved through an imaginative approach to the future;
divisions in international life can be overcome in ways which preserve the autonomy and individuality of the
societies affected.
4. The Joint Declaration is of the highest significance to our two Governments and peoples. Negotiations began on the basis of the common aim for Hong Kong, agreed when I met Chairman Deng Xiaoping in 1982. They were sustained, despite some difficult moments, by an underlying sense that trust and understanding were growing between us. They conclude today in a reaffirmation of our conviction that Britain and China
can work even more closely together in the future - for
Hong Kong, for out two peoples, for international understanding and prosperity.
5.
There are of course great differences between our two
societies. But we also have much in common. No civilisation
has a longer continuous history than China's. In Britain we too have a great sense of history. Both our people are talented and inventive. The invention of printing in China is so basic to world civilisation that we take it for
granted.
And the productive impulse set off by Britain's industrial revolution is still reverberating around the world. Progress, industrial or social, mean change. Such
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