Abstract: The 2^nd PAGES global monsoon symposium which was held in Tongji University, Shanghai, China, from September 13 to 15, 2010, discussed four topics, namely the global monsoon concept, global correlation of regional monsoons, proxies of global monsoon intensity and monsoon related extreme hydrological events. Aside from the inter-annual variability associated with ENSO etc, this symposium discussed monsoons from inter-decadal to geological long-term cycles and the driving forces of their evolution and variations in a global scale. As a consensus, the symposium is not just providing a global view of regional monsoons, rather, it provides a new view of the regional monsoons as a global system. The global monsoon directly responds to external forcing, as well as interacts with high latitude processes through teleconnection.