Given the abundant literature on the advantages and disadvantages of having an IR theory with Chinese characteristics at the national and international level, a much broader range of reflections on other Asian possibilities has been largely ignored. The quest for national school of international relations is nonetheless a China rise syndrome. This is both because the quest for Chinese IR demonstrates the possibility of non-Western self-understanding and because other Asian nations likewise want to preserve self-understandings outside rising China. This paper will sketch a few selected perspectives that arise from surrounding communities, incorporating Indian, Australian, Korean, Taiwanese, Australian, Southeast Asian, and Japanese sources. This way, theorizing international relations under the circumstance of China’s rise is more a process of breaking the monopoly of European and North American IR and Chinese counter-IR to open up endless opportunities for learning as well as self-searchin