Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: China opens a new military base in Laos; a rumor that Trump will attend the next ASEAN summit spreads; and the hairy rhinos of Sumatra are expecting babies.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: China opens a new military base in Laos; a rumor that Trump will attend the next ASEAN summit spreads; and the hairy rhinos of Sumatra are expecting babies.

What Does China’s New Military Base in Laos Mean?

China has established a military base in Laos. It is its third overseas military base and its second in Southeast Asia; the other two are in Cambodia and Djibouti.

The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy are situated at an airport about 30 miles from Laos’s capital, Vientiane, according to an announcement last week from Beijing’s Defense Ministry.

Satellite imagery shows that work started last year, according to Reuters. This will be China’s first overseas air force base.

The ministry said that the facilities exist to help Laos train its air force pilots. Data on the Lao People’s Liberation Army Air Force is sketchy, but open-source intelligence firm Janes reckons that it operates five SAIC LE500 basic trainers and four Yakovlev Yak-130UTS advanced jet trainers.

China’s global military presence is dwarfed by that of the United States. But in 2017, it opened its first acknowledged overseas military base, a logistics base in Djibouti, where it has a permanent presence.

In 2025, it opened a joint training and support center at Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, located on the Gulf of Thailand. However, Cambodia has insisted that there are no permanently stationed Chinese personnel or warships based there. And vessels from other navies, including the U.S. Navy, have visited Ream.

If China now develops a meaningful presence in Laos, what does this change?

China-focused military commentator Rudy Lu suggested that the base would allow China to shape Laos’s air force and encourage Laos to purchase Chinese equipment. The base could also be used in annual joint aviation drills with Thailand. The commentator quoted a Chinese military analysis account that said this would make the training “closer to actual combat.” Last and not least, the account said the base could let China “exert influence in the Indochina Peninsula in the future.”

Vietnam will likely be most concerned, as it has long viewed Indochina as its backyard, not China’s. In 1978, it invaded Cambodia to topple the pro-China Khmer Rouge government. When China then invaded Vietnam in 1979, Laos vocally backed Vietnam.

Now, though, China has—at the least—a peripatetic presence in both countries, in addition to its growing bases in the South China Sea. In a crisis, this could give China serious leverage over Vietnam, Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told Bloomberg.

Taiwan is also concerned. In the event of conflict over the South China Sea or........

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