From the first empire onward, with no exceptions, the Chinese imperial families worked to expand and consolidate their power. The Qin empire was built on Qin state conquest over the other regional states. The Han repeated that process after a brief disintegration, and expanded the imperial reach southward to Vietnam, and westward along the silk road.
The tang are the same, but the early Tang rulers looked even further, attempting to exert control over Tibet, and executing an ultimately futile invasion of Korea.
The northern song period was one of near constant (and almost always falling) attempts at restoring through war the extent of tang regional control. The Mongols pushed further into the southwest than any before, bringing yunnan into the empire for the first time.
The Ming rulers were the first (of two in history) to build the empire from the south upward. All through war. Then they worked to consolidate the patchwork that was south China, bringing millions into the empire who had never tasted imperial control before.
Then the Qing - they take the cake, pushing the empire farther to the west than ever before with massive military campaigns. They subjugated all the western territories that are currently under Chinese rule, and maintained military presence in Tibet.
It will come as no surprise that the story of the nationalists and communists is the same.
What you heard as fact is preposterous.

In addition to what people like /u/lukeweiss and /u/youdaracist has said, it could be that the person who made that statement meant to say that China never had a colonial empire in the way the European powers did. There were a bunch of expeditions during the Ming dynasty, but they were mainly for diplomatic, trade, and bringing cool shit home to the emperor reasons, not to make land grabs by overpowering the flag-less locals (or compete with European powers) overseas.

But I think the quote given in the title was worded very carefully to make China look much more benevolent than it actually was. No, they didn't create resource colonies where they chopped off the natives' hands, but they did expand their borders though military victory just like every other self-respecting superpower did.

It was said in "Why we Fight - The battle of China around 5:35.

China is an empire, by conquest.

So it is like a bait and switch. Whomsoever a Chinese conquer becomes labeled as Chinese by the victors, and therefore it is not "invasion" because one cannot invade one's self.

Who the fuck told you this.

interesting topic.. Could it be said that China never tried to colonize or takeover any place that was not bordering them? That still makes them sound pretty benevolent. Like, they just want more space.