Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: tradition, modernity, and foreign policy in China / William A. Callahan -- Rethinking empire from the Chinese concept "all-under-heaven" (tianxia) / Zhao Tingyang -- The possibility and inevitability of a Chinese school of international relations theory / Qin Yaqing -- Xunzi's thoughts on international politics and their implications / Yan Xuetong -- Tianxia, empire, and the world: Chinese visions of world order for the twenty-first century / William A. Callahan -- The enduring function of the substance/essence (ti/yong) dichotomy in Chinese nationalism / Christopher R. Hughes -- Paradoxes of tradition and modernity at the new frontier: China, Islam, and the problem of "different heavens" / David Kerr -- Beyond world order: change in China's negotiations of the world / Elena Barabantseva -- Confucianism, cultural tradition, and official discourse in China at the start of the new century / Sébastien Billioud -- Conclusion: world harmony or harmonizing the world? / William A. Callahan.