Instead of giving cash, the Chinese government prefers to pay Chinese companies to build roads and structures, bypassing local politicians, powerbrokers and construction crews, and to deliver them completed.

The China model is “more effective. It’s less prone to corruption,” said Sven Grimm, the executive director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He said the approach also bolsters China’s economy, because “Chinese enterprises ... go out and gain international experience.”
This sort of arrangement is neither new nor uniquely Chinese: it's been used by other countries in other places. The deals are often popular until the project is finished and the loan has to be paid (or whatever quid pro quo associated with the project comes due). Then the complaint is that the funding country took money out of one pocket and put it into another, and the local folks end up paying for years thereafter.

It would be interesting to look at how exactly these arrangements are structured, and how the Chinese will be taking in their return on investment. I don't expect they're giving anything away.

What amazes me is that they're able to get away with bringing in Chinese labor to the extent they do... doesn't that get a backlash from the local labor force? It's pretty much accepted here that if the Japanese, Koreans, or Chinese fund a project, the prime contractors will be from those countries and the bulk of the money will be transferred direct from the funding government to those contractors (it's essentially a way for governments to hand money overt to favored firms), but those contractors are expected to hire local labor and there would be a huge and immediate backlash if they tried to bring in workers below the supervisory level.