China-Nepal Bilateral Military Training Event Takes Place Amid Political Turmoil

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On 7 September 2025, the bilateral China-Nepal Sagarmatha Friendship 2025 military training event commenced in Nepal. The following day, Nepal descended into political turmoil, and the country’s prime minister resigned on 9 September 2025. While there is no indication that China, let alone the small contingent of Chinese forces in Nepal for the publicly announced bilateral training event, had anything to do with the widespread protests and the overthrow of the previous Nepalese government, the fact that Chinese troops were present in Nepal at the time highlights the risks that come with the territory of primarily limiting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) fairly meagre international engagement to poorer and, in many cases, politically fragile countries.

China has so far avoided situations in which it is forced to quickly withdraw its military personnel that are present in another country amid political turmoil. While Nepal borders China—a fact that means relatively little given Nepal’s mountainous topography and the poor state of road transport infrastructure connecting Nepal and China—and notwithstanding the fact that the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) can make use of its expanding fleet of Y-20 and Y-9 transport aircraft to evacuate Chinese military personnel deployed to other countries for training events, China’s leaders are likely to try to steer clear of such situations in the future, especially when it involves military engagement in more distant locations, particulalry sub-saharan Africa. As things stand, the Chinese military contingent in Nepal would, in a worst-case scenario, likely have been evacuated through India—something that Beijing would likely do its utmost to avoid—or have been evacuated by helicopter—which would come with its own risks and challenges—without heavy equipment.

The last thing that Chinese leaders will want to see will be lightly armed, if not unarmed, Chinese military personnel visiting another country to participate in a military parade or a small-scale bilateral military training event, becoming the targets of persons who are angry with China’s economic and/or political influence in their country. Other countries tend to deal with such inherent risks by having in place a global rapid response capability and/or by deploying military forces to high-risk countries in adequate numbers to provide organic force protection (and more generally forgoing training events in high-risk areas). For example, the United States will typically send a company or battalion-sized force of marines hosted on one or more amphibious ships that are, in turn, escorted by one or more warships, so that the United States Marine Corps can participate in a bilateral or multilateral military training in an unstable country.

The PLA currently has a very limited global rapid response capability. China’s sole overseas military base, which is located in Djibouti, is poorly suited to serving as a regional (small-scale) rapid response hub given the small size of the Chinese garrison in Djibouti, the absence of forward-deployed fixed-wing transport aircraft in Djibouti, and the fact that the Chinese military base in Djibouti does not feature an airport and is not located next to an airport that Chinese military (fixed-wing) transport aircraft can readily operate from. Time will tell whether China will alter its approach to international military engagement in light of this September 2025 experience.