How is China playing this?
If I relate your words Chinese strategy with what was said by Former FBI:
China is 'big winner' of Russia-Ukraine war, former FBI agent who worked in China warns, this is really annoying, again china is taking advantage of the suffering and economy of Russia and Ukraine.
Now I realize that behind the sanctions, the decline in the ruble and the war between Russia and Ukraine was planned by China, to overthrow the United States as the leader of the global economy, as the FBI says.
I can't understand why it is only now that America, including the world, is only now realizing what I have quoted below, what is it called, that politics is cruel.
That is not a brand new strategy neither. "Helping" nations that need help and then taking advantage of their future recovery is something economists have done for a very very long time. Think about it like a company, there is a company that does well, but they created too much debt that they can't get out right now, you pay their debts off and get 10% of the company, now for the next 50 years you are going to profit from it and it will be on your papers. This is how Warren Buffet got so rich as well.
This is just national scale of the same thing, a lot more money involved. Russia did it to many smaller old USSR nations, Europe does it for smaller European nations, China does it to surroundings, even Saudi Arabia gets all the money from oil, and spend it on getting more companies. So it is not really a new thing that people figured out recently.