本文一開始會回顧，日本如何困惑於中國作為一個鄰居的意義。日本人的困惑反映了日本在變成現代國家後關於自我定位的搖擺不定。本文特別會顧及那些視中國為異己的文獻採用了怎樣的論述策略。相對於此，來自中國的回應通常將舊中國與帝國主義看成異己，前者是自己痛恨的過去，後者似乎是自己響往的未來。故揭露了中國人內在的分裂與一般人對現代性既企求又疑懼的矛盾。曘後，本文將回到關於國家在本體論上的地位，並指出，將國家視為唯一的本體的作法，封閉了在東亞發展出不同的本體論。本文建構新本體的目的，是肯認國家以外有意義的存在形式，故應當發展一種論述機制，讓我們對不斷流動或出現的新異己，負起相互尊重的道德責任。

　　　　　Chinese sovereignty means very different things to people of different cultural background as well as social position. In modern history, Japanese narrators were among the first to ponder the meaning of Chinese sovereignty. Their narratives, and dervied desires of China, varied widely as each envisions a Japan of a kind respectively in terms of realism, idealism, statism, democraticism, humanism, fascism, neo-traditionalism, socialism and revolution. Torn between progressivism and conditionism, narrators in the Chinese state lost their own discursive capacity in responding to all these desires. Not empathizing with one another embedded in ontologically different composition, countries could not therefore form an Eastasian system in the realist/liberal sense. However, once recognized and named so, the Eastasian system, which has been a non-system, has the potential to bring in forms of alterity previously excluded by the closed world of sovereignty. This paper welcomes this possibility.