Xi — and Trump — may have been referring to the tributary system between China and Korea, during which Korea gained protection from China while it was forced to pay “tributes,” or gifts.

The tributary system was not labeled as such by the Chinese; rather, the name comes from the Europeans who discovered China and its neighbor’s relationship and originally reflected Western ideas ...

So reads an imperial statement from the Ming dynasty describing the 15th-century Chinese tributary ... hold his tribute system together. First, not everyone is playing ball. China has pushed ...

For centuries, diplomacy between China and Vietnam has been conducted under the “tributary system” in either its classical or its neo-tributary variant. The system consists of an exchange of ...

To pseudo-formalize its foreign relations, China’s ruling dynasties established what is best described as a tributary system, tracing back to the Han (206BCE-220CE). These dynasties managed ...

It is often suggested that China today seeks an updated tribute system. If so ... domestic politics alone (even in the closest tributary, Korea), and exerted only mild influence over foreign ...