YouTube comment on China's history of trade and foreign invasion

I’m from Malaysia.  China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land.  Admiral Zhenghe came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria.  He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not.  In 1511, the Portuguese came.  In 1642, the Dutch came.  In the 18th century the British came.  We were colonised by each, one after another. 

When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians.  When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian.  They didn’t take lands.  The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe.  But Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire. 

Then came the Century of Humiliation.  Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades.  After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the Opium War I, which China lost.  Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty).  The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron.  The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston.  Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium.

~ YouTube comment, alias "C L," "The Truth About Michael Pompeo and China," Cyrus Janssen, August 8, 2020