I think that what they mean is not to use Django's templates, but to use it as an API server. Django's DRF is one of the easiest ways to create and maintain resource endpoints.
Nginx would serve the index.html with the scripts and the React components would request their data to the API.
This of course doesn't consider SSR'd React as it is just to get started, but the community is working on it (see pipy's projects)
Also, for a middle sized project, wouldn't Vue have a more approachable learning curve?
Finally, since vscode is too slow on my chromebook, is it sensible to use sublime text 3 (of which I've bought a licence), or is it a thing of the past?