It has become fashionable to reexamine the history of foreign relations from a global perspective. The international relations discipline in China should revisit China as the regional leader in the 17^th-18^th century, especially its self-identification and overall thinking about foreign relations. The sustainability of the China-led tributary system hinged upon economic support and cultural identity. A comparison between the tributary system in the 17^th-18^th century and other regional systems can expose, at the three levels of “East Asia—Periphery—Globe,” the commonalities and differences of major powers’ foreign relations in the early stage of globalization. A comparative analysis of the tributary system during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty and the Westphalian system demonstrates that the two systems almost coexisted simultaneously and were associated closely with each other. They competed from the very beginning, and the ultimate demise of the tributary system had more to do with the high maintenance cost and the bankruptcy of the Qing dynasty than with its backwardness. Furthermore, the frequent travelling of Jesuits made mutual learning between the two systems possible, which in turn had an impact upon the development of domestic politics of major powers in the East and West.