Reconstructing Hierarchy through Treaties and Regulations: Qing’s East Asian Diplomacy in the Late 19th Century

This study analyzes how the Qing Empire reconfigured diplomatic hierarchy in East Asia in the late nineteenth century through its treaty-making practices.Focusing on Qing-Japan and Qing-Chosn relations after the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity (1871) and the Regulations for Maritime and Overland Trade Between Chinese and Corean (1882), it explores how the Qing court redefined its regional authority by employing the language and format of modern international treaties while maintaining the traditional logic of suzerainty.By analyzing memorials, diplomatic correspondence, and treaty texts in Chinese, Chosn (Korean), and Japanese, the article demonstrates a strategic transformation in Qing officials' approach to external relations and regional geopolitics in East Asia, within a new framework shaped by Western international law.The article argues that Qing diplomacy was structured around a deliberate strategy of institutional differentiation, in which modern diplomatic forms were selectively adopted to reinforce, rather than transform, existing hierarchical relations.While the Treaty of Amity with Japan nominally presupposed sovereign equality, its internal provisions -including asymmetrical official designations and non-transferable privileges -embedded Qing hierarchical assumptions within a formally modern framework.In contrast, the Trade Regulations with Chosn explicitly codified suzerainty, granting Qing commercial commissioners extensive judicial and administrative authority that far exceeded the reciprocal standards of Western treaty practice.Ultimately, this study suggests that late Qing treaty diplomacy was not merely a passive response to Western imperialism, but an active and strategic reconfiguration of regional hierarchy under modern institutional conditions.This study thus illuminates how non-Western polities navigated the tension between hierarchical authority and sovereign forms in the making of the modern international order.