What is the difference between a sphere of influence and a colony?

Answer 1

A sphere of influence does not involve sending your people over to a country to live there to control it. China in the late nineteenth century was a sphere of influence for many countries, including the U.S. Each country wanted to influence China's trade or policies in some way (still seen in Hong Kong which the British only recently released to China; they had kept the city as a trading and business center, but not a lot of British people lived there). Australia was a penal colony where the British sent prisoners to live. They discriminated against the native people there (The Aboriginals) and few exist today(Australia tries to help the rapidly diminishing population of Aboriginals). The profits from Australia and Britain's other colonies went to Great Britain, instead of staying in the colony. Both spheres of influence and colonies reflect nationalism and Imperialism, but spheres of influence are a little nicer to the native peoples. Neither is really good for them, though. They were often discriminated against and used only for their product.