<P> Compared to Russian controlled areas, more benefits were given to the Muslim Kirghiz on the Chinese controlled areas . Russian settlers fought against the Muslim nomadic Kirghiz, which led the Russians to believe that the Kirghiz would be a liability in any conflict against China . The Muslim Kirghiz were sure that in an upcoming war, that China would defeat Russia . </P> <P> The Qing dynasty forced Russia to hand over disputed territory in Ili in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881), in what was widely seen by the west as a diplomatic victory for the Qing . Russia acknowledged that Qing China potentially posed a serious military threat . Mass media in the west during this era portrayed China as a rising military power due to its modernization programs and as major threat to the western world, invoking fears that China would successfully conquer western colonies like Australia . </P> <P> Russian sinologists, the Russian media, threat of internal rebellion, the pariah status inflicted by the Congress of Berlin, the negative state of the Russian economy all led Russia to concede and negotiate with China in St Petersburg, and return most of Ili to China . </P> <P> Historians have judged the Qing dynasty's vulnerability and weakness to foreign imperialism in the 19th century to be based mainly on its maritime naval weakness while it achieved military success against westerners on land, the historian Edward L. Dreyer said that "China's nineteenth - century humiliations were strongly related to her weakness and failure at sea . At the start of the Opium War, China had no unified navy and no sense of how vulnerable she was to attack from the sea; British forces sailed and steamed wherever they wanted to go...In the Arrow War (1856--60), the Chinese had no way to prevent the Anglo - French expedition of 1860 from sailing into the Gulf of Zhili and landing as near as possible to Beijing . Meanwhile, new but not exactly modern Chinese armies suppressed the midcentury rebellions, bluffed Russia into a peaceful settlement of disputed frontiers in Central Asia, and defeated the French forces on land in the Sino - French War (1884--85). But the defeat of the fleet, and the resulting threat to steamship traffic to Taiwan, forced China to conclude peace on unfavorable terms ." </P>

What was china's balance of trade status for centuries prior to imperialism