BANGKOK — China has opened a foreign air force support center and is training pilots in Communist Laos — the latest thrust south by Beijing’s military, which is already training the armed forces of other Southeast Asian nations.
The location China chose in Laos was the CIA’s former “secret war” Lima Site 44, an isolated airstrip that played a key role in the U.S. carpet bombing of the tiny country during the Vietnam War more than 50 years ago.
The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center reportedly does not include a Chinese garrison or exclusive use rights and “is not directed against any third party,” according to China’s Defense Ministry.
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Chinese engineers laid fresh concrete over Lima Site 44’s rustic, red dirt airstrip during the past year to create a functioning airport with an expanded, durable runway and parallel taxiway and apron.
The new airport is in Ban Keun town near the thin Nam Ngum River in hilly, sparsely populated terrain 27 miles north of the Lao capital, Vientiane.
The China-Laos Center began operating at the site on Thursday from a freshly built, three-story headquarters featuring dozens of air-conditioned rooms, rooftop look-out platforms, telecommunications equipment, and the flags of both nations.
Lao Defense Minister Khamlieng Outhakaysone and Chinese People’s Liberation Army officials, alongside the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy, inaugurated the jointly operated center.
“The center deepens practical exchanges between the two militaries, upgrading from simple equipment assistance to long-term integrated cooperation in talent training, joint exercises and equipment support,” China’s government-controlled Global Times reported.
It also might help maintain stability in the Indochina Peninsula and Mekong River region, with both sides able to conduct joint search and rescue, border control, and disaster relief aviation drills under the framework. “The center could help Laos build a systematic talent training system for pilots, ground crew and flight personnel, reducing its reliance on overseas training.”
Laos has a tiny air force ill-equipped for warfare.
The Lao People’s Liberation Army Air Force operates a small fleet of fewer than 40 older Chinese and Russian aircraft, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported, “mainly transport helicopters and light jet trainers, with no modern fighter jets in service.”
The renovated airstrip is reportedly able to support only light transport and trainer planes.
Laos enjoys good relations with all its bordering neighbors — China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam — but some analysts have suggested China’s influence in Laos’s military is a pushback against Vietnam’s decades-long involvement in helping to run the Laotian government.
China has also been training Cambodia’s air, sea, and land forces in annual bilateral Golden Dragon exercises for several years.
In Thailand, China trained the army, marine corps, air force and even an aerobatic team to create colored smoke trails portraying Thailand’s red, white and blue flag.
Jet fighters from Beijing and Bangkok engaged in August took part in joint air force drills in Thailand, training for “joint air defense and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”
A separate Blue Strike series of naval exercises by China and Thailand focuses on counterterrorism and disaster relief, joint maritime assaults, sniper fire, deep scuba dives and open water survival.
Geographically larger Myanmar has also engaged with China in low-key “maritime security exercises.”
The junta running Myanmar seized power in a 2021 coup and relies on Chinese aircraft, drones, military technology and training against pro-democracy and separatist insurgents.
Beijing hopes a China-Myanmar Economic Corridor will give China’s landlocked Yunnan province a southern route across Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal.
That would enable China to skip a longer southern route through the Strait of Malacca when importing oil from the Middle East.
China’s military relations with Vietnam, meanwhile, completely flipped during the past 47 years.
In 1979, China invaded northern Vietnam but withdrew in a widely perceived defeat after three weeks.
Hanoi lured the Chinese into stretching their supply lines too far south, making them too vulnerable to assaults.
Today, the two Communist countries conduct joint army training along their mountainous frontier and also joint maritime exercises.
The 40th joint naval patrols in the Beibu Gulf during two days in March 2026 included anti-piracy assaults with artillery and machine guns, conducting search-and-rescue drills and sharing intelligence.
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