When the US builds an oil export terminal in Nigeria, the location is fully privatized and administered by western nationals. There's no path from the dockyard to the manager's office. There's no state interest in the facilities, save some meager tax revenue that's shaved to the bone by accounting tricks. There's no Nigerian retirees who get to profit off the dockyard's operations through pensions or 401ks. The ports are export-oriented, with the intention of taking Nigerian natural resources out.

When a Chinese state enterprise builds a dockyard in Kenya, there's shared ownership out of the gate. Kenyans share managerial roles. Kenyans share equity. The Kenyan state government gets a huge boost in revenues. And the ports are bidirectional, with Kenyan locals getting to benefit from cheap Chinese imports - particularly high tech imports like electronics and motor vehicles - as Chinese firms export Kenyan minerals.

Bi-directional trade is how the old English colonies worked, too. And that trade made English colonial enclaves incredibly prosperous both for the old world mercantilists and the new world plantation bosses. Its a lucrative model for everyone on the inside track.

The worst thing you can say about China is that they're simply doing imperialism better than the Americans.