Book excerpt: Since the end of the Cold War, the new Chinese leadership generation has had to promulgate new guiding principles for handling global diplomacy which acknowledges China's new position. Given the dramatic changes in the international system and its domestic economic success for the growing 'China's rise' idea on the global stage, China in the 21st century faces a mixture of old and new challenges, including terrorism, hegemonism, and authoritarianism. While Deng Xiaooping combined Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, into 'Taoist diplomacy' in response to the hostile international position after the Tiananmen Incident, China's foreign policy keeps changing, and the multidimensional diplomacy adopted by China can be seen as a consistent theme in Chinese foreign policy in the 21st century. Multidimensional Diplomacy of Contemporary China attempts to examine the origins, guiding principles and sequential outcomes of China's multidimensional diplomacy in the 21st century, working under the flag of 'peaceful development,' 'harmonious international order,' and 'global responsibility.' The contributions are grouped into three sections. The first discusses the theoretical foundations of multidimensional diplomacy. The second section turns the analytical focus to China's immediate neighbors in East Asia, and at last the book will go beyond the immediate neighborhood of China to the global community. These essays explore China's dealings with the countries of Africa, the Gulf, and the South Pacific and provide other in-depth analyses on China's foreign policy towards Pakistan, Russia, and Japan. This book seeks to significantly shape the knowledge and thinking about China's global interactions in the 21st century.