Tributary state The term tributary state refers to one of the two main ways in which a pre - modern state might be subordinate to a more powerful state . The heart of the relationship was that the tributary would send a regular token of submission ( tribute ) to the superior power . This token often took the form of a substantial transfer of wealth , such as the delivery of gold , produce , or slaves , so that tribute might best be seen as the payment of protection money . Or it might be more symbolic : sometimes it amounted to no more than the delivery of a mark of submission such as the bunga mas ( golden flower ) that rulers in the Malay peninsula used to send to the kings of Siam . It might also involve attendance by the subordinate ruler at the court of the hegemon in order to make a public show of submission . Tributary relations involve no element of administrative control or interference by the hegemon . At most , the hegemonic power might intervene in succession issues and might ratify the accession of a monarch . For this reason , the extrapolation from pre - modern inter - state relations to the modern international system is problematic . The modern - day heirs of tribute hegemons tend to claim that the tributary relationship should be understood as an acknowledgement of the hegemon ' s sovereignty in the modern world , whereas former tributary states deny that there was any transfer of sovereignty . For instance , Tributaries of Imperial China implies Chinese sovereign claim over territories not now regarded as Chinese . An unusually elaborate and formalized tribute system developed in East Asia . Historically , the Emperor of China saw himself as the emperor of the entire civilized world . It was not possible for such an emperor to have equal diplomatic relations with any other power , and so all diplomatic relations in the region were construed by the Chinese as tributary . The disdain of the state ideology of Confucianism for trade , and the conceit that Chinese civilization had no need of products or technology from outside meant that trade , when it was permitted , was also construed as tributary . Diplomatic missions and trading parties from non - Chinese regions were interpreted in Chinese records as being tributary , regardless of the intention of those regions . Under this construction , the goods received by China constituted a tributary offering , while those that the visitors received were interpreted as gifts that the emperor in his kindness had bestowed upon his distant tributaries . In Al Andalus , the last remaining Moorish Nasrid Dynasty in the Emirate of Granada paid tribute to the Christian Kingdom of Castile ( present day Spain ) . In the Western colonial system , non - Western states were sometimes incorporated into a European empire as protectorate s . In the Philippines , the Datu s of the Barangays became vassals of the Spanish Empire , from the late 1500s until the Archipelago fell under the power of the United States of America in 1898 . Their right to rule was recognized by King Philip II of Spain , on 11 June 1594 , under the condition of paying tributes due to the Spanish Crown . For modern forms of state subordination , see puppet state , satellite state and client state .