When the Continental Congress named their country The United States of America. This pattern was boosted by the publication of Common Sense.
Using the United States and Japan as an example, one prominent similarity would be that both countries practice the economic system of capitalism, while a major difference would be that the United States is a heavy exporter while Japan in a heavy importer.
Both the Chinese and the Japanese felt that the Europeans were barbarians. They were particularly repelled by the smell of these foreigners who ate much fattier diets and who did not typically wash very often. They also felt the Europeans lacked subtlety and were rather crass in their behaviors.
The similarities, however, largely end there. The Chinese tried to simply ignore the Europeans. They were able to do this to some degree because the Europeans did not have anything they wanted. They were willing to take European silver in exchange for tea and otherwise leave the Europeans alone. This worked until around the time of the Opium Wars when the Europeans forced China to open itself more.
