ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the constitutional structures and institutions of East Asian international society before the arrival of Western powers. It draws on primary Chinese sources to trace how Qing officials debated various options regarding the Ryukyu crisis. The chapter discusses the implications of this study for understanding international society, in general, and contemporary Sino-Japanese territorial disputes, in particular. It also inquiries into the "loss" of Ryukyu indicates that China's strategic behavior was constrained as much by its limited military capabilities as by a normative self-expectation as the paternal figure of the concentric East Asian "family". Close inquiry reveals that an ethos of appropriateness guided ruling elites in the region. It accounts for the Qing Dynasty's apparent passivity when, in the 1870s, Meiji Japan annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom, which later became Okinawa Prefecture and ruled over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. In the nineteenth century, Japan sought to become a member of Europe's international society in order to survive it.
