I want to test the ability of students to read a passage and answer questions about it. Could you please come up with a good question for the passage "In some rare cases, such as with Ethiopia and Qing Dynasty China, the local governments were able to use the treaties to at least mitigate the impact of European colonization. This involved learning the intricacies of European diplomatic customs and then using the treaties to prevent a power from overstepping their agreement or by playing different powers against each other."?
A:
Who could be combative?