They've been doing that for years tho. They offer poor african countries guaranteed loans in exchange for their most precious commodity. Usually rare earth minerals. They bring in teachers to teach chinese to the locals and get land deals on top of all that. They take over ports if that's their most lucrative industry. It literally doesn't matter. This was something I learned about 5 years ago when recovering from a broken ankle and was consuming all sorts of content. Why throw bodies at problem when you can throw imaginary money at them like the banksters have always done?