It was superseded by the New Series, under the current title, in 1992, and the inaugural issue was designated the commemorative volume of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Institute. A number of the volumes in the original series, i.e., vols. Earlier volumes carried articles in both Chinese and English, but in recent years there have been fewer English language contributions. The time frame of coverage and subject matters of the scholarly articles being published over the past decades vary widely, ranging from the prehistorical era to modern and contemporary China, and from archaeology, ancient artifacts and documents, classical, modern and contemporary literature, philosophy and history, Buddhist, Daoist and other religious traditions and thought, epigraphy, etymology, phonology, the arts and music, science and technology, architecture, medicine, literary and popular culture, cultural development and changes, to historical and contemporary personages, political, social and economic history, Sino-foreign political, intellectual and cultural relations, and sundry others. In short, they run the gamut of Chinese history and civilization from the earliest times to the present.
All manuscripts are subject to blind peer review and to the editorial discretion of the editors.