David,

I think you may be overlooking a significant part of the difference between the Chinese and Western approaches: the Chinese can deploy state-directed investment as a tool of policy; the west cannot. Western States can direct aid, but investment in enterprise, whether light industry or resource extraction, is purely in the hands of the private sector. The US government can provide some incentives, which are not necessarily followed, but the bulk of the US private sector doesn't seem particularly interested in the African market. That may be at least in part because manufacturing of consumer goods, especially low priced consumer goods, is not a specialty of US industry: even the US gets them from China.
What do you think the French have been doing for the past 50 years? Or do you think Total (the major French oil company) - is not some form of state-directed investment?

Europe has advantages in Africa that the Chinese cannot even dream of - French have preferential rights to Niger's Uranium mines & control the money (CFA) of fourteen African nations - these are advantages the Chinese wouldn't even dream of.

I'm not going talk about preferential trade policies/tariffs (a colonial legacy) that Europe & the USA benefit immensely from.

Western media has done a great propaganda campaign on how the Chinese have a great advantage over the West doing business in Africa - that it is believed by many, doesn't make it true. It is not.

Most mining companies in Africa still come from the West - Rio Tinto does big business here - but Western media makes it look as if only the Chinese are gobbling up everything.