Very true about China. However, the Chinese method probably doesn’t seem so horrible to a local denizen that sees some infrastructure built under a mercantilist model. They actually see a road, a dam, a port, or hospitals. (happens a lot in Africa lately) Then they compare it to our method of using the State dept/USAID/Facebook/CIA to create an insurgency, and when it gets out of hand, we turn loose some firepower and brag how we saved them.
If you were a local, you might like the Chinese method better. Locals suffer less.
Spot on. The whole doctrine of small special operations and intelligence units doing some James Bond antics and “surgically” fixing an area with “smart power” needs to get thrown in the trash. It hasn’t worked, and where it’s been tried, it’s been a complete disaster.