Answer:
In East Asia, China was the big power upon European arrival. China used a protectorate system for trade in which small Asian countries, Japan in particular, would bow to the Chinese in exchange for protection and trade. This shows submissive action to a stronger power and represents respect to that said power.
Britain had desires to open trade with China since it was the main mission of exploration in the 15th century. They hoped to gain access to the valuable goods within China but to not pay the high prices they had trading through the Ottomans. As with all of China's trade partners, they expected a sign of respect shown to the emperor before trade could officialy start. The British traveling group, were asked to bow in front of the emperor in order to seal that deal. The envoy refused as they would only bow to their own king. Based on that Britain got thrown out of China (for the time being ) in aspects of trading .