China has more of a reputation for indebting poorer countries to them, and just buying debt in general from as many countries as possible.

I imagine they are looking at this less as an opportunity to fill the gap with soft power, and more of an opportunity to push desperate countries into debt with them. Our soft power moves were preventing that from being necessary in the way it will be now

Theyve basically financially colonized a lot of Africa at this point already, even when we were sending a lot of aid there. Its massively beneficial for China to have as much control/leverage as possible over the countries that supply raw materials for their manufacturing economy

China has played the long game for longer than most countries have even existed. Rich countries owe them and buy everything from them. Poorer countries owe them and sell everything to them