Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/65

 the custom of despatching gift-bearing envoys to China from time to time, just as Japan herself had done, though with less regularity. But it was also true that Riukiu had been subdued by Satsuma without China's stretching out a hand to help her; that for two centuries the islands had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China had recently made a practical acknowledgment of Japan's superior title to protect the islanders. Each empire asserted its claims positively, but whereas Japan put hers into practice, China confined herself to remonstrances. Things remained in that state until 1880, when General Grant, visiting the East, suggested the advisability of a compromise. A conference met in Peking, and the plenipotentiaries agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan, taking the northern group, China the southern. But on the eve of signature the Chinese plenipotentiary drew back, pleading that he had no authority to conclude an agreement without previously referring it to certain other dignitaries. Japan, sensible that she had been flouted, withdrew from the discussion and retained the islands, China's share in them being reduced to a grievance.

This incident illustrated China's methods and their results. From time immemorial her policy towards the petty States on her frontiers had been to utilise them as buffers for softening the shock of foreign contact, while contriving, at the same time, that her relations with them should