I am not delusional. I have a clear understanding of Chinese attitudes towards Africans, but there are a few important points:
1. The Chinese are more desperate for business, so they are willing to go the extra mile to interact with locals.
2. The Chinese Government understands the importance of public diplomacy (obviously the Indian Government does not) and there are many outreach programs to acquaint Africans with Chinese culture and vice versa.
3. We’ve had a hundred years of interaction with Indians in Africa with very minimal integration (at least in West Africa where I live). I strongly doubt the Chinese would be less adaptable than the Indians.
Obviously since the Chinese are now coming with larger money bags you would be more sympathetic to them but you are overlooking some other important areas of historical relationship with India.
Indians over decades have contributed the largest number of peace keeping forces under the UN to bring stability in many African countries including Congo, Somali, Sierra Leon.
Some of the first independence movement in Africa were first started by Indians in SA, Kenya and Namibia. (Gandhi first started his independence movement in SA not India.)
Independent India was the country at the forefront of struggle against European colonization of Africa. As also the struggle against apartheid in SA. Not only Indian government but also Indian people were very much part of the struggle.
The fact that Indian government is not as concerted in her effort as the Chinese government is because, a heavily bureaucratic and chaotic democracy like India lacks the efficiency the Chinese government has. Indian is economically far behind China and also has a lot on her plate within India, to worry about development of Africa.
The chinese built the wall in a 11 years. Period. They have a history (and a very long one) of autocracy and they simply cannot stand the idea of people looking eye to eye. If the chinese were there for a 100 years, Im sorry to tell you, the locals would for sure had their behinds whipped. There is consistent evidence of that across history.