Synopsis This volume offers 18 articles written by distinguished scholars of the People's Republic of China of different world issues as they affect the entire planet. The scholars are faculty members of one of the best known think tanks in Beijing: The Institute of Contemporary International Affairs. These articles were published as occasional papers of the Insitute in the last 2-3 years. Put together they enable everyone interested in China to get a comprehensive canvas of Chinese perceptions of the world in the 1990s and beyond. Three of the papers sum up Chinese perceptions of a new world order which will take shape around the first decade of the 21st century through "more unrest, more turmoil". The second section of the book offers four papers dealing with economic and strategic aspects of the emerging new world order. The largest number of essays make the third section. Here the Asia-Pacific region--the growth region of the 21st century, despite the current fiscal and financial turbulence in the region--is scrutinised by seven Chinese scholars from political, relational, economic and strategic angles. In the last section Chinese scholars look at the post-Soviet Russian and CIS scenarios, and at India. The two papers on India deserve special attention because there are not many published articles on India in Chinese scholarly journals.