Yet even this exploitative relationship may prove much more helpful than the grain and occasional squad of observers the US or UN sends. It's a funny sort of problem isn't it - perhaps the only way to get genuine investment in these areas is an almost parasitic relationship. More interesting would be if this forces the US or other western countries to more aggressively step up to the plate...
The West will never step aggressively to the plate. We aren’t allowed to by our own domestic politics. One of the major reasons China can become so directly and aggressively involved is they aren’t white. They don’t have a history of African colonialism, Apartheid, or slavery in Africa. They’ve done all these (or similar) and worse, but not in Africa and not in a way which found domestic disapproval.
If the West ever entered Africa the way China has the politicians leading it would destroyed at home. It’s more domestic politics and history than geopolitics.
If the US or Europe was digging in as blatantly as China we'd be accused of going back to our colonial roots. Good thing China has so many other controversies surrounding them, it makes their activity in Africa look generous by comparison.
> Yet even this exploitative relationship may prove much more helpful than the grain and occasional squad of observers the US or UN sends.
Any economic program set forth by the West and any decisive intervention to stabilize a country is promptly accused of being neocolonialism.
I recall a few years ago there was a military coup in Guinea Bissau and the West stepped in to stabilize the country by getting the Community of Portuguese-speaking countries (Portuguese acronym CPLP) involved and send ground troops. Even so, it was decided that the ground troops needed to be from Angola and leave Portugal to handle logistics because having Portuguese troops on the ground would help the narrative that the former colonizer was controlling the fallen democratic government as a sockpuppet.
They're most probably installing levers everywhere on the planet. Now how they're gonna use it is to be seen. Of course without opposing forces China will be free to exploit them to their limit but maybe they won't.
At least the intent is transparent. "we're here to help ourselves, but it will help you too" is a lot less suspicious than "we're here because we care..."