"China has never been a colonizer in the traditional sense of the term."
That's the point. They have always sought to be a regional hegemon with neighbour states as tributary states, paying a tribute was a way to pacify the so called "barbarians", you cannot raid someone you are paying tribute to. And countries that didn't pay tribute, you know what China did? Closed their borders and stopped trade with them. Just like Japan stopped paying tribute, so China just banned trading with them.
They didn't go around the world on a murdering rampage and where there wasn't resources to be found, and just dump criminals there instead.
Remember, these are the people who invented firepowder but used it for fireworks. The British took firepowder and turned it into a weapon.
