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                    "As China\u2019s power and self-confidence grows, it\u2019s becoming much more active in projecting that power by establishing military bases abroad. The latest is at Ban Keun Airport near Vientiane, where China has established a joint support and training facility with Laos, according to a September announcement by the Ministry of National Defense in Beijing.\nIt is the first overseas military facility that China has openly acknowledged, unlike the ones in Djibouti and Cambodia. This has several implications for the region.\nBut first, the base itself. Satellite imagery procured and analyzed by CNN shows a 2,000-meter-long runway, taxiway, and parking apron for 22 aircraft. CNN also reports rapid construction at the site. Other media reports mention that satellite photos show eight aircraft, likely Chinese-Pakistani Hongdu JL-8 training and light attack jets (also called K-8s), and more than two dozen support vehicles. Laos is known to own this type of aircraft, but fewer than the eight seen at the facility. Laos could have bought more, or the extras may be Chinese.\nChina has said that the facility is strictly for training Lao air force pilots, \u201cenhancing practical military cooperation,\u201d and \u201cpromoting regional peace and stability.\u201d This sounds reasonable enough, but it conflicts with China\u2019s own previous positions on foreign military facilities. It has been a vocal critic of the global U.S. military presence.\nEstablishment of the Laotian base follows a pattern in China\u2019s growing external military presence and access. China established its first overseas military facility in Djibouti in 2017, maintaining then and now that it is merely a logistical facility. This is still its most distant foreign military base, sitting astride the crucial waters overlooking the Bab al-Mandab strait leading to the Red Sea.\nCloser to home, a Washington Post story in 2022 revealed that China was upgrading the Cambodian Ream Naval Base, with the Chinese military being given \u201cexclusive use\u201d of parts of it. China and Cambodia initially denied the report, but last year they formally inaugurated the facility. Soon warships from both countries visited it, conducting joint military drills. Though the base is not very far from China\u2019s own territory, it\u2019s on the strategically crucial Gulf of Thailand and thereby strengthens China\u2019s position in the Indo-Pacific and particularly in the South China Sea.\nWith the Ream Naval Base in Cambodia and Ban Keun Air Facility in Laos, China now has both naval and aviation logistics hubs in the area.\nThere are at least four implications from the establishment of the base in Laos, both for neighbors such as Vietnam and the whole region.\nFirst, sitting to the west of Vietnam, it gives China one more pressure point on that country. Vietnam already has a complicated relationship with China, with close economic ties but also significant territorial disputes.\nSecond, it adds an air power dimension to China\u2019s foreign base activity. The two foreign bases that China previously built were both naval ones. The latest base at Ban Keun provides China\u2019s air force with an air power footing in a strategically sensitive region. China can be expected to later extend the runway to support Chinese surveillance aircraft or bombers. Though Laos is land-locked, its long and narrow geography could provide China with an excellent site for monitoring activity across Southeast Asia.\nThird, this represents a new type of military basing activity. For China, what matters is assured access. By packaging access as joint training facilities or disaster relief and humanitarian support hubs, Beijing secures a more lasting presence while avoiding the diplomatic and political cost of building traditional military bases. As far as China is concerned, it has created pretty much the same strategic effect without investing in a dedicated Western-style base of its own. Also unlike Western bases, China\u2019s decision to act on Ban Keun, as ASPI senior analyst Rachel Vandenbrink told Reuters, was \u201cmore about a target of opportunity than filling an obvious operational need.\u201d\nFinally, the ratcheting up of military pressure increasingly strains Southeast Asia\u2019s traditional strategy of hedging, in which countries of the region integrate with China\u2019s manufacturing strength while balancing it with U.S. military power. Regional powers will need to consider how long they can hedge when Chinese military power looms ever larger over them.\nThis article was originally published in ASPI\u2019s The Strategist."
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