Safest? How is genocide from forced labor, forced displacement and lack of immunity to foreign diseases, plus the deliberate and/or negligent destruction of irreplaceable historical monuments and cultural artifacts, in any conceivable way the safest route?
Your profile says you live in France, presumably born there. You seem to have little personal experience of the receiving side of colonization. Short version: it's not pretty.
Sure, bring me all the antibiotics and ebooks you wish to donate, but if you want to extract the ore I'm sitting on, I'd feel much safer if you don't kill me, claim ownership, and build a city over my grave. Being outclassed economically is worth keeping my neck any day.
I think you've misinterpreted the choice Emile is describing. The choice isn't between being colonized or not, the choice is what to do while you haven't been colonized but there's an empire nearby who might (and let's face it probably will) decide to colonize you soon. His "first path" would be something like Meiji Japan, as others have discussed in this thread.
Previous open thread
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