Up to now, there is still no IR theory in China that can be compared with the three main IR theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism, or with the English school. The Chinese IR community has a keen interest in IR theories since the end of the 1980s. And from the begining, the discussion on the ''IR theories of China'' has already been at the centre of the controversy, which involves topics such as whether there is a Chinese theory or not, what name such theory should be given, which approach should be taken to develop the IR theory of China or the Chinese School of IR theories. Among different approaches, there is a consensus that theoretical sources lie in traditional Chinese political theories. It has become a notable characteristic and trend in the contemporary〖JP〗 IR study in China to discover and explain the traditional Chinese international relations ideas (TCIRIs).  This article focuses on the trend in IR research of China which seeks to find theoretical sources in traditional Chinese ideas. Apart from the introduction and conclusion, the main body of this paper can be divided into three sections. The first part briefly reviews the Western research on TCIRIs, pointing out that the Chinese scholars paid little attention to TCIRIs. The second part discusses four types of research of TCIRIs in the Chinese IR academia: the theoretical innovation research represented by Zhao Tingyang and Qin Yaqing|the explorative explanatory research represented by Yan Xuetong and his Tsinghua group|the ChineseWestern comparative research|and the application research. The third part analyzes the problems and possible difficulties in the research on TCIRIs, arguing that the study of TCIRIs makes academic attainment of scholars in heavy demand, and there are also some difficulties in the respect of analytical tools as language and methodologies as well.  Chinese IR academia going back to history to seek theoretical sources since the mid 1990s is similar to today's IR study in Western countries, which also tries to find their theoretical roots in Western political classics, e.g. Thucydides, Hobbes, Kant, Locke, Grotius, Rousseau, Marx, etc. In this sense, China's turning to its own classics is a natural thing to do, parallel to what is a common practice in the West research, but it turns to its own Chinese source. This turn shows that Chinese IR scholars are gradually becoming more selfconfident in finding independent foundations for its research, which is helpful to make the direction clear for construction of Chinese IR theory or Chinese School of IR theories. At the same time, the turning back to history and traditional thoughts is a response from Chinese IR academia to the great change that China has gradually returned to the world political and economic centre from the isolation in the past since the reform and opening policy in 1978. It can be regarded as the dual effects of glocalization in IR study, that is, in the Chinese context, adopting Western IR theories and meanwhile seeking for local traditional thought sources as well, which is essentially an attempt to answer the two questions that have been bewildering China academia for more than a century: how to deal with the relations between China's studies and the Western studies, and the relations between the ancient thoughts and the modern research in China.