ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a modest and circumscribed objective of exploring the contours of Chinese world order thinking as they have evolved over the years but focusing on the most developments. It explores the post-cold War Chinese conception of world order. The chapter attempts to provide a synoptic backward search for the historical roots of Chinese world order thinking. It examines the rhetoric and actions of the Chinese government manifest in terms of several contending images of world order. The chapter is concerned with the antinomies and paradoxes of Chinese world order thinking. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (FPPC) have become the defining criterion of Chinese characteristics in the world order debate. In pursuit of that goal, China projected the FPPC and the UN Charter together as a coherent body of peremptory norms and basic principles of the international public order.
