What interests me is less how China will respond to a "lost" investment than how they will respond to a threatened one. Suppose a government that the Chinese have purchased is threatened by social discontent and/or insurgency, with a significant anti-Chinese sentiment, possibly demands for nationalization of industries or land. Suppose the opposition or insurgents start looking likely to win. Do the Chinese go in with FID/COIN? If that doesn't work, do they commit forces? We all know that these things have a way of starting small and growing out of control.

There's no way to know what will happen, and the Chinese response will of course depend on the country involved and how critical the threatened investments are perceived as being... but I could very easily see the Chinese getting involved in something like that eventually.

I do not think they've discovered some magic method of exploiting the developing world without resistance. I suspect that their model has held up because it's relatively new and hasn't had time to generate a backlash... yet.