The people there didn't "need civilizing" the government needed overthrowing, and Tibetans literally started the process and asked for Chinese assistance.

Next you'll tell me saying that the Confederacy being destroyed and integrated back into the union at the end of the Civil War was "imperialist"

I'm begging you to actually understand what imperialism is. Imperialism is not integrating another country by itself, it involves specific financially extractive structures which are absent in the relationship you describe.