Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Understanding the hegemony and the dialectics of the emerging world order / Li Xing -- Ch. 1. Theorizing the rise of the Second World and the changing international system / Steen F. Christiansen and Raul Bernal-Meza -- Ch. 2. Constructing and conceptualizing "interdependent hegemony" in an era of the rise of the BRICS and beyond / Li Xing and Oscar G. Agustin -- Ch. 3. BRICS and bilaterals: synergies and contestations / Renu Modi -- Ch. 4. From boulders to ashlars: BRICS of a new world order: hierarchies of power and degrees of freedom in the emerging world system of the 21st century / Leonid L. Fituni -- Ch. 5. G20 and C2: Sino-US relations as an institutional cooperation game? / Lin Hongyu and Li Xing -- Ch. 6. China in Africa: cool cash or a new world order? / Soren Villadsen -- Ch. 7. A "new silk road" between China and the Arab world: a problem for the US or the EU? / Wolfgang Zank -- Ch. 8. "Chineseness" as socialization : China and the ASEAN in East Asian regionalism / Zhang Jiuan and Li Xing -- Conclusion: the BRICS & beyond : new global order, reorder and/or disorder? : insights from "global governance" / Timothy M. Shaw.