Earlier quoted context omitted.
China sends a pile of money to Africa. But there is a growing disillusionment with their investments. For example, they would promise to develop infrastructure in exchange for mineral rights. So they move in a large number of Chinese, creating zero local jobs. Then they mine out the resources as fast as possible and move out. And right after that, the infrastructure invariably falls apart. They can only screw so many…
Zimbabwean here: our elite will take money from whoever will give it and make nice noises and when the time comes to pay it back in some way that involves and actual cost to themselves..........will find the next donor. The Chinese (and any other country) will only get out of Africa that which they can demand today quid-pro-quo. There won't be any loyalty.
And the stick is sanctions, and then regime change/military action/etc if other countries don’t protest too much.
This has worked pretty well for the US for the last 70ish years. The same playbook can work for China, they are betting.