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...