I don't think that the amount of debt and the amount of countries in debt is a correct measure of influence that the IMF/WB or China has in the region. The IMF offers highly concessional loans in relatively moderate amounts with many strings attached. These 'neo-liberal' strings [1], which include mandatory monetary reforms and privatization could indeed be considered 'colonial', and their effectiveness can be doubted (or even seen as destructive), but they do seem to have a semblance of responsible debt management in their intentions (but perhaps not in their outcome).
China on the other hand, itself being on the brink of a major debt crisis, is handing out seemingly no-strings-attached YOLO-money, especially to debt-vulnerable countries that previously had large parts of their IMF/WB debts forgiven [2]. In some cases, especially in infrastructure projects, China requires the hiring of Chinese labor and further redirects money because there is a huge technology gap between local and Chinese companies.
These are no concessional loans, and China must know that (some of) these countries are inevitably going to default with major losses of land, infrastructure and natural resources as a consequence, to China's gain. It perhaps is too early to tell, but these measures seem far more 'colonial' to me in intent than the loan programs of the IMF/WB in the last 50 years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_adjustment
[2] https://www.cgdev.org/blog/yes-chinas-lending-problem-debt-v...