It’s modern colonialism to some extent, the USA does/did similar, you ingratiate the people to you so you can exploit the resources OR geography OR populace somehow.

It’s not always evil. It’s rarely ever altruistic.

One way this is done is “we’ll build the bridge to get to the other side of this thing if we’re granted mineral rights for the next LONG TIME” and upfront you get the bridge but the backside is you lost the resource. For the people who were never going to reap the reward of resource … but now they have a bridge … win/win?

This is a downside to these sorts of things. Again, not always evil though.