Not even getting into the more dubious part of this claim, just because the British or Americans did it doesn't mean it's right or acceptable. If you disagree with that, you're implicitly pro slavery, pro penal expeditions, etc.
Many, even most people are pro-slavery and pro-whatever as we speak, even paying to see it happen. They only mouth some useless moralizing words.
Just like it was reprehensible that America propped up the Iranian shah to ensure western oil interests were served. And reprehensible that the British Empire got the Chinese addicted to Opium to force more favorable trade agreements. Also reprehensible is the Cuban blockade imposed by America, which has prohibited the country from thriving or failing on its own merits and forced suffering onto its people.
It's all reprehensible, and it should all be held up lest folks get this notion that America is this infallible savior who can do no wrong. It's bad, and it should never happen, but it does and it will so long as people keep buying into Nationalist narratives like these.
If you can't explain why country A doing X is bad but country B doing similar thing isn't it probably means you don't have a good argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Please don't engage in whataboutism. One should be able to criticize China's actions without calling into discussion actions of other nations.
Do you go about threads criticizing US govt actions drawing parallels to similar actions in other regimes like China or Russia?