I'm not sure what you are saying here. That by past standards they were not totally horrible, or that becoming colonized was a fair trade due to all of the "ben

I'm not sure what you are saying here. That by past standards they were not totally horrible, or that becoming colonized was a fair trade due to all of the "benefits"? As an example, Japan nor China was never colonized, they were totally ass-backwardian to late 19th century and appear at least to foreign eyes quite modern nowadays.