The objective of the roundtable held at the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Studies (SIAS) in June 2004 was to discuss from a multidisciplinary perspective the role China plays today in the international community. Under this headline experts from China, Germany and the U.S. gave their presentations in six panels: political science, religion/ethics, law studies, economics, history of science & technology, and literature. The discussion of the papers demonstrated very clearly the high importance of communication and interchange between different disciplines and scholars of different countries in order to open up new ways of thinking and to cross borders, also between sciences and humanities. This advanced academic meeting was kindly supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Contents: Gottfried-Karl Kindermann: Problem Structures of China's Foreign Policy - Gu Xuewu: China's Return to Africa - Gunter Schubert: Reforming Authoritarianism in Contemporary China. Reflections on Pan Wei's Consultative Rule of Law Regime - Karl-Josef Kuschel: World Religions and Global Ethic in the Age of Globalization - Yang Huilin: The Reception and Interpretation of Global Ethic in China - Robert Heuser: What Rule of Law? The Traditional Chinese Concept of Good Government and Challenges of the 21st Century - Mi Jian: Comparative Law and the Contemporary Chinese Legal System - Martin Nettesheim: Legitimizing the WTO: The Dispute Settlement Process as Formalized Arbitration - Sonja Opper/Sonia M.L. Wong/Ruyin Hu: The Power Structure in China's Listed Companies: The Company Law and its Enforcement - Victor Nee/Yang Cao: Institutional Changes and Income Inequality in Urban China - Johannes Fleischle: Xibu dakaifa. The Development Programme for China's Western Regions - Hans Ulrich Vogel: Some Functions of Science in Modern and Contemporary China - Tian Miao: The Transmission of European Mathematics in the Kangxi Reign (1662-1722) - Looking at the International Role China Could Play from an Historical Perspective - Wolfgang Kubin: The Status of Chinese Literatur in the 21st Century - Rainer Schnhaar: Towards a Transcultural Concept of Comparative Literature in View of the Changes in Present-day China. The objective of the roundtable held at the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Studies (SIAS) in June 2004 was to discuss from a multidisciplinary perspective the role China plays today in the international community. Under this headline experts from China, Germany and the U.S. gave their presentations in six panels: political science, religion/ethics, law studies, economics, history of science & technology, and literature. The discussion of the papers demonstrated very clearly the high importance of communication and interchange between different disciplines and scholars of different countries in order to open up new ways of thinking and to cross borders, also between sciences and humanities. This advanced academic meeting was kindly supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.