The first step is indeed building up BRI in Asia. They also lack in soft power, so they need to find a way to help their partner nations that are pariahs or in some form of frosty relations with the international order, exit this status, so they can bring engines of growth and export destinations for China. Finally, helping these countries run efficiently, and have the finances to spend on social services while not endangering their ruling elites will be crucial for making in roads into Africa.
If China can help broker good management in partner nations and get nations to work together , they could only then have a unique angle to be the tech and infrastructure provider of Africa’s growth and benefit accordingly.
Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran, and the Arab nations will be where China’s Soft power will be made or broken. their deal between the Iranians and the Saudis was the first real step in this regard. All this will probably have to get done over the next 10-15 years too. They will need to do a Palantir style AI advisor system to help their partner nations, who’s elite are based on loyalty more so then competence, run their countries better.
This is going to be harder than it sound. Of the BRI, the only country that can remotely have a mutually beneficial relationship with China is Brazil, but then that would depend on how US influence in Brazil, Think Tank in US politic thought once Lula comes up and ousted Bolsonaro that US-Brazil relationship is going to go, as Lula is very left leaning, while Lula did warm up with China and Russia since he is in, he hasn't really dropped the relationship completely with the US, mostly because US have a strong say with Brazilian politics and COA have a lot of push into South America, both Russia and China did not, and Lula would need to keep such ties with the US for the sake of Domestic Politics.
Russia is probably going to be a lost clause, as the war with Ukraine drag on, their economic survival is completely depending on China, and I don't know if China would take it up, maybe as a pet project, but most likely what China would do to Russia is to just do the minimum to keep it alive, well, it won't change until at least Putin is gone, that's a sure thing because any money and resource devoted to Russia would just be lining Putin and his friends pocket. It's not going to work
India will probably never going to have a cooperative relationship with China, India want what China has, and they are domestic competitor. I mean if any wester corporation are leaving China, their first place to shop is going to be India, I would doubt China will do anything that benefit India in such a way, i mean sure, if there are mutual benefits. But it probably wouldn't develop India to get them to be more competitive to China......
The thing about soft power is that you cannot have soft power unless you have hard power. I mean, look at US for an example. The US does not get all the allies they have now with just money and development. In fact, US was one time or another at war with most of their allies (Mexico, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, Spain and so on) the concept of soft power borne from hard power, it's the basic stick and carrot policy, you can't separate one another. The problem for China is, until they get to become the undisputed leader in Asia, which mean they have to beaten, most likely militarily and subdue all Asian nation until they can enjoy the same level of Soft Power US enjoy, and if you are just going by and pump money and resource into someone infrastructure, chances are one flip of leadership or just a flip of a mind of leadership, all those effort would have been gone. That's what the US learn from trying to engage in Africa, reality is, once they change the leader, they will just take your money and leave, that's exactly what the Chinese are feeling at the moment.
Without the ability to control that continent, there are no way you can have sure fire return on any development, the US tried it in Americas and Europe and succeed, they tried it in Africa and they failed, would China be able to do the same in Asia? That is the big question anyone should ask.