{ "archive_path": "archive/1790849124.230546", "base_url": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos", "basename": "", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-01 10:05", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/index.html" }, "domain": "thediplomat.com", "extension": "", "hash": "CQZPKJVFZDB5VHZXPCNN", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thediplomat.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:35.409250+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:34.713398+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:35.793328+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:35.416277+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:52.834191+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:48.706162+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpmpdz8x4z", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:48.691364+00:00", "index_texts": [ "This week, the Chinese military opened a new logistics and training facility at an airport in Laos, further expanding its regional security presence and establishing the first overseas presence of the Chinese air force.\nIn a statement, China\u2019s Ministry of Defense said that the China-Laos Military Joint Support and Training Center was inaugurated on Tuesday, in a ceremony that was attended by Lao Defense Minister Khamlieng Outhakaysone and a delegation from the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA).\nThe facility, which is based at Ban Keun Airport, which sits close to the Nam Ngum River around 50 kilometers north of the capital Vientiane, also includes a China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy.\n\u201cThe center, jointly maintained and operated by both sides, is aimed at helping Laos strengthen the training of its air force pilots,\u201d the Ministry said, but offered no details about what personnel or equipment would be based at the airport.\n\u201cThe construction and use of the center reflect mutual respect and equal consultation between China and Laos, comply with both countries\u2019 domestic laws, relevant international law and common practice,\u201d it said. \u201cIt is not directed against any third party and contributes to enhancing practical military cooperation as well as promoting regional peace and stability.\u201d\nSatellite imagery of the Ban Keun facility shows it also includes the construction of an extensive airfield. According to Reuters, work began on the new airfield in late 2025 and work was ongoing as of early September. \u201cIn place of green fields,\u201d it reported, \u201ca large paved runway and a parallel taxiway and apron were visible, along with a number of new buildings.\u201d\nThe airport was built on the site of an airfield known as Lima Site 44, one of a network of airstrips that were used by the U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. secretly supported an insurgency by anti-communist Hmong rebels. However, satellite images show that the new airfield expands far beyond the narrow, red-earthed strip established during the Vietnam War.\nThe new center adds to the handful of overseas facilities now operated by the PLA, since the opening of its first official overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017. It also complements a similar training and logistics facility that has been established at Cambodia\u2019s Ream Naval Base on the Gulf of Thailand. The Cambodian facility was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Hun Manet in April 2025, after three years of Chinese-funded refurbishments that include a 300-meter-long deep-water pier, a 5,000-ton dry dock, and a 1,000-ton slipway.\nChina\u2019s involvement at Ream has attracted the suspicion of Western, and particularly American, security officials, who fear that the base may evolve into a full-blown Chinese base. Cambodia has sought to allay these fears by inviting foreign navies, including those of Japan, Vietnam, and the U.S., to visit the base.\nCollin Koh, a scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said in a post on X that unlike Ream, the base in Laos is \u201cmore ostensibly similar to the one in Djibouti.\u201d He added, \u201cIt may not be wrong to conclude this is the first full-fledged PLA overseas base in Southeast Asia.\u201d\nThe development at Ban Keun is perhaps unsurprising given the rapid expansion of China\u2019s influence in Laos over the past 15 years. During that time, the north of the country has become economically fused to southern China, as new highways and an impressive China-built railway have improved overland connections. The Chinese investment presence is clearly visible in most parts of the country, and there is a large Chinese expatriate community in Vientiane and the provincial towns of northern Laos.\nDefense relations have proceeded more slowly, perhaps due to the sensitivities of Vietnam, Laos\u2019 traditional defense patron, which has had close ties with Laos dating back to the communist struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. In \u2060June, however, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith visited Beijing for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which the two leaders agreed to enhance defense cooperation.\nXi also suggested that China and Laos should establish a \u201c3+3\u201d\u2002strategic dialogue mechanism involving their foreign, defense, and public security ministers, \u201cas an opportunity to strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation and crack down on cross-border crimes.\u201d (A similar mechanism was established with Cambodia earlier this year.) Last month, Beijing and Vientiane also concluded \u201cPeace Train 2026,\u201d a 16-day joint military exercise aimed at \u201chumanitarian assistance and military medical services.\u201d\nOne Chinese security analyst told the state-run Global Times that the base at Ban Keun was a means of providing the Lao People\u2019s Liberation Army Air Force, which operates a small and obsolescent fleet of Chinese and Russian craft, with a \u201csystematic training system for pilots, maintenance crew and flight personnel\u201d that will reduce its reliance on overseas training. More broadly, the analyst said, the facility will deepen \u201cpractical exchanges\u201d between the two militaries, \u201cupgrading from simple equipment assistance to long-term integrated cooperation in talent training, joint exercises and equipment support.\u201d\nPerhaps most tellingly, the analyst drew an explicit parallel between Ban Keun and the facility at Ream Naval Base, noting that together they \u201ccover inland airspace in the Indochina Peninsula and the maritime direction in the Gulf of Thailand.\u201d\nIn both cases, the Chinese military has emphasized that the facilities have been established on the basis of \u201cmutual respect\u201d and are not directed at any\nNonetheless, the Ban Keun facility has the potential to alter the strategic map of mainland Southeast Asia, pulling Laos and Cambodia further out of the Vietnamese sphere of influence.\nNguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told Bloomberg that in light of the recent expansion of China\u2019s military presence in Cambodia and the South China Sea, Vietnam in particular could have \u201cserious grounds for concern\u201d if the Ban Keun facility becomes a foothold for a more permanent PLA presence in Laos.\n\u201cThese developments could give Beijing greater leverage over strategic access routes around Vietnam, raising concerns about its ability to monitor, and potentially constrain, Vietnam\u2019s room for maneuver in time of crisis,\u201d Giang told the newspaper. \u201cMuch depends on how the facility is used.\u201d\nVietnam has not yet officially commented on the opening of the new facilities in Laos." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:46.600494+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:46.593190+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "China\u2019s Military Open New Logistics and Training Facility in Laos \u2013 The Diplomat", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:46.554683+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:46.543890+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/index.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-01T13:41:35.802385+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "China\u2019s Military Open New Logistics and Training Facility in Laos \u2013 The Diplomat", "warc": null, "wget": "thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/index.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790849124.230546", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-01T13:41:48.706162+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-01T13:41:34.713398+00:00", "path": "/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "e44d5d68-2787-42c0-a81a-56e4efed6355", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790849124-import.txt" ], "tags": ",escalation,pool,war-wiki", "tags_str": "escalation,pool,war-wiki", "timestamp": "1790849124.230546", "title": "China\u2019s Military Open New Logistics and Training Facility in Laos \u2013 The Diplomat", "updated": "2026-10-01T13:41:34.712882+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-01 13:41", "url": "https://thediplomat.com/2026/10/chinas-military-open-new-logistics-and-training-facility-in-laos/" }