China Opens First Full Overseas Base in Southeast Asia

Reuters reports China's new joint support and training center in Laos is operational, which analysts call the PLA's first full-fledged Southeast Asia base.

China's Ministry of National Defence said Tuesday that the China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy are now operational at an airport in Ban Keun, roughly 50 km north of Vientiane. Beijing says the facility will train air force pilots and is 'not directed against any third party.' Reuters reports that the announcement, made without detail on personnel or equipment, confirmed a buildup quietly carved from farmland over the past year.

China has operated a logistics base in Djibouti since 2017 and a joint center at Cambodia's Ream naval base, but Cambodia insists no Chinese personnel or warships are permanently stationed there. Collin Koh of Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies wrote on X that the Laos site is 'more ostensibly similar' to Djibouti, concluding it may be the first full-fledged PLA overseas base in Southeast Asia. Analysts at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute told Reuters the center suggests Beijing seeks persistent access to a logistics hub supporting rotating forces.

Commercial satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters shows construction began on the new airfield in late 2025 and was still ongoing in early September. Where green fields and a rough dirt strip once stood — land some records indicate the United States used during its Indochina war in the 1960s and 1970s — there is now a large paved runway, a parallel taxiway, an apron and a number of new buildings. The Laos Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions, and the Pentagon's annual report last year did not list Laos among 22 countries where it said Beijing planned military facilities.

The Pentagon's own overseas network dwarfs anything Beijing holds, and military attaches have long said China lacks an adequate base network to project power against the United States. China already runs three island bases with 3-km runways on Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs in the disputed South China Sea, and Reuters reported fresh work in the Paracels. ASPI's Rachel Vandenbrink told Reuters it is unclear what force China could project from Laos that it could not from Yunnan, but the site deepens its institutional ties with the Lao armed forces. Thailand, a US treaty ally, said Vientiane's choice is sovereign but it will monitor developments closely.

Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith visited Beijing in June, where President Xi Jinping called for a strategic dialogue including national defence, and the two militaries held a humanitarian-response exercise this month. Laos's small air force, flying a handful of Chinese- and Russian-designed aircraft, can now train pilots at home rather than sending troops to Vietnam, Russia or China, a Southeast Asian diplomat told Reuters. The expansion runs alongside softer engagement: UNESCO reports a Beijing programme in August brought more than 100 educators from China and Southeast Asia together on AI and STEM teaching for rural communities, part of the same broadening Beijing–Southeast Asia relationship the base now hardens.