>Who were the ones financing exploration and on a mission to
>colonize distant lands?


and actually, what mission to colonize distant lands? the east india trading company was for trade, ditto dutch east india trading co. the colonizations in the east came about over centuries as the power gap widened. and even in the west, columbus didn't set out looking for colonies.

and btw, as sanjay subrahmanyam has shown with the world from the red sea to points east, europeans were actually poaching pre-existing trade routes developed by traders around the red sea. for that matter, the chinese too funded long distance exploration, viz. zheng he going to madagascar. i think that a fuller view of the non-western world will make your arguments about european uniqueness less tenable. why would you wish to erase the long history of peoples of color stepping outside their boundaries?