China and Britain, east in Asia and west in Europe, breed different cultures, beliefs and logics. Geographically, these two distantly parted countries barely seem to connect, let alone closely with each other. However, in their enduring history, in which both countries have been making contributions to humanity, China and Britain have also been exerting profound influences upon each other. Nevertheless, examining each other with their respective coordinates will surely result in totally different understandings from the native ones. With the deepening of globalization and rapid development of information technologies, there are closer co-operations and exchanges between the two powers, yet their distinctive cultural backgrounds and ways of thinking may often come in the way of east-west communication. To ensure win-win on common interests, cultural exchange is the sole means to promote mutual understanding and remove barriers. In this issue, we document both British and Chinese cultural exchange programmes during this year in order to review the pros and cons of cultural exchange policies and their implementations, and discuss in depth the role cultural programmes play in Sino-UK exchanges as a whole.
中國和英國，一東一西居於亞歐的兩端，孕育出了不同的文化，不同的信仰以及不同的生活邏輯。從地理位置上來看，相隔萬里的兩個國家之間似乎很難有什麼樣緊密的聯繫，但實際上，中英兩國在長久的歷史時間裡都對人類文明做出貢獻的同時對彼此產生了深刻的影響。然而，從中英兩國各自座標系來審視彼此卻會得到迥然不同的結果，隨著全球化進程的不斷加深和信息科技的飛速發展，中英兩個大國的合作和交流更為緊密，但不同的文化背景和思維邏輯往往會成為東西方交流過程中的阻礙。為了能夠獲得兩個國家在共同利益上的“雙贏”，文化交流成為了促進相互理解、化解交流隔閡的不二法門，這一期的專題中，我們將彙集在這一年來從英國到中國的文化交流項目，來審視一番文化交流政策和操作中的成敗得失，深入探討文化項目在中英交流之間扮演的角色。
