The rise of China and how other countries respond to China's rising is widely studied. But little has been done on how other countries reacted to the rise of China throughout history and how China strategically interacted with them. The conventional wisdom holds East Asian international relations did not operate in the Westphalian way and China's rising in history did not trigger regional balancing actions. In this article, we challenge that view. We argue East Asian international relations were not exceptional to basic rules of the Westphalian system. Each time China rose up, it triggered balancing actions from neighboring regimes, including nomadic empires and settled kingdoms. The neighboring regimes would accommodate China only after they were defeated by China or pro-China regimes propped up in these countries. The Chinese hegemony in East Asian history could not be taken for granted. Over last 2,000 plus years, only during three periods of time (the Qin-Han 秦汉, Sui-Tang 隋唐, and Ming-Qing 明清 dynasties) China could successfully overpower regional resistance and enjoyed a stable tributary relationship with neighboring states. In the rest of time, the Chinese state could not retain hegemony in East Asia.