Belt and Road paving way for China’s military presence in SE Asia

Last week, eight Chinese-made light attack jets sat on a half-finished runway at Ban Keun, flanked by more than two dozen military support vehicles, offering the first aerial glimpse of a new Chinese-Lao military facility north of the Lao capital, Vientiane.

The speed of the buildup and the earthmoving visible around the airstrip in the satellite imagery suggest China may have acquired its first full-fledged military base in Southeast Asia. If so, over a decade of Chinese infrastructure lending likely left Laos too indebted and too dependent to refuse the outpost.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled in Kazakhstan in 2013, has certainly not delivered the economic windfall it promised for Laos, not least from a US$6 billion high-speed rail line connecting the two neighbors that has likely done more for Chinese migration into Laos than mutually beneficial two-way trade.

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