The key ideas of construction of the Chinese school of IR are a “consciousness of Chinese issues” and a “reflection of China’s international view and international political philosophy.” The main path for the Chinese school to follow is to consider both research issues and theories. A complicated and dialectical relationship exists between academic research and policy research of international studies. As long as there are real issues being studied, and the study is contributing incrementally to theory building, the Chinese school will grow in the environment of research.