You are mistaken being a weak power at that time with being under fully colonized by foreign powers and subject to foreign currency, culture, and language dominance as is the case with India. The British ruled you, controlled you, set rule on you, defined how you should speak and learned their language, imposed their tax on you, forced you to work and paid royal tax on any business that you conduct on your motherland property. Anymore you want me to add? my friend? LOL
For us, the situation is different. We control our culture, our education, our currency. Basically we control every central ingredient of a sovereign nation. We were just weak. Therefore were subject to unequal treaty and trade. But make no mistake, we were never under any individual foreign power direction, and/or, nor, control of leadership whatsoever.