The United States has long known that projecting the power of its democracy abroad requires access to air bases far beyond our borders.Like many other things, China is a focused student of America, so it should come as no surprise that the Communist giant is now placing its military aircraft on an air base in a neighboring country.
Last month, China revealed what it is describing as a joint flight training center in Laos. No one believes for a moment that it is for flight training, given that the Lao People’s Liberation Army Air Force has no modern fighters. Any private airport in the United States probably has more airplanes based there than the entire Laotian air force. Moreover, why would a training center now require lengthened runways and new hangar facilities?
What China is getting in Laos is a military base that will enable it to station bombers and high-performance fighters beyond its borders. It mirrors China’s quiet funding of a Cambodian naval base several years ago.
Even if Laos wanted to object to a Chinese military base on its sovereign soil, there is not much they can do about it: they are a debtor nation. Roughly half of Laos’s foreign debt is owed to China, largely from loans used to finance Chinese-built infrastructure projects in Laos.
While the Pentagon is most certainly aware of China’s new force projection, no one is more focused on this latest gambit than neighboring Vietnam. The two nations have already butted heads in recent years over Beijing’s territorial claims in disputed waters. This new move puts more Chinese warplanes within easy reach of Vietnam. Message received in Hanoi.
Southeast Asian governments need to publicly confront what is clear to everyone. At the very least, they should be monitoring what is likely to happen next: a significant presence of Chinese military personnel at this Laos air base, the arrival of aircraft and weapons, and the installation of potent air defenses that will protect Chinese military assets.
All of this will remind that part of the world, as well as the international community, that China continues to pursue a deliberate and calculated military strategy designed to gain global dominance at a time and place of its choosing. They may call it a “training facility” but one could rightfully ask, “training for exactly what?” The answer is obvious.
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