> It's not that the Chinese companies only want to hire their own workers, but the fact that the local workforce do not have the skill/equipment/capital to handle large scale development projects.

I've often thought that but caught myself thinking I was just buying into the narrative - refreshing to hear it might be slightly less cynical than my brain would have me believe (though still undoubtedly to some degree). My assumption being the skillset to build a transnational highway and scalable mining infrastrcuture is different than doing those things at localised levels.