David:

Good catches.

I just don't believe that the "Chinese" model is, in fact a development model.

It is a completely gratuitous and self-serving "economic" model intended exclusively to meet Chinese resource objectives (Did I say "purely market-based?).

If they, like our US industries in the 19th Century, need a railroad, they will get one built or more elsewhere. The railroad was not built to promote development outside the context it served. It was not built to win any hearts and minds (COIN), and it had no external purpose, objective or intention.

It did, however, have consequences, positive and negative, across the economic landscape.

To the extent that local and domestic "costs" increase in these resource areas, they will simply move on to other places. It is pure self interest.

The question of whether this tried and true economic model creates significant political consequences, induces or sustains local corruption and bribery, disenfranchises some, eradicates others, and, in the end, is sustainable or desirable, is a completely different matter.

Basic self-interest, as with China, is a negotiated and usually pretty transparent process with a host country, region or area. For them, the equation is simple, but that does not mean that it is for the counterparty,nor that there are not substantially different (or even more important) internalized counterparty issues.

Apples and Oranges cannot be interbred, but they can, sometimes, make a good fruit punch (or go stale).