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China increases military pressure around Taiwan with new large-scale naval exercises.
China’s People’s Liberation Army has initiated a large-scale snap exercise around Taiwan, combining naval, air, rocket, and coast guard forces in a live-fire operation running through December 30. The drills simulate a de facto blockade, raising regional security concerns and underscoring the growing military pressure on Taipei amid wider Indo-Pacific tensions.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense and China’s Eastern Theater Command said December 29 that the People’s Liberation Army has launched a major snap exercise codenamed Justice Mission 2025, with forces already operating in a live-fire phase. The operation brings together PLA Navy surface combatants, Air Force strike and support aircraft, Rocket Force missile units, and China Coast Guard vessels in coordinated deployments that effectively surround Taiwan from multiple directions, framing a simulated blockade as a legally defined military drill.
China’s Justice Mission 2025 exercises conducted by the PLA around Taiwan signal a coordinated escalation involving naval, air, missile, and coast guard forces, increasing pressure through simulated blockade operations in the Taiwan Strait and reinforcing Beijing’s posture in the Indo-Pacific security environment (Picture Source: Chinese Military)
The structure of Justice Mission 2025 reveals more than a reaction to short-term political triggers. It is a rehearsal of strategic coercion. Five exercise zones, mapped north, south, and east of Taiwan, create a semi-ring of pressure that would likely disrupt maritime and aerial access to key ports and bases during an actual crisis. PLA Navy surface groups and Air Force fighters conducted coordinated patrols and simulated precision strikes, while missile units rehearsed rapid mobilization. Chinese Coast Guard elements have been observed conducting what Beijing terms “law enforcement drills” near outlying Taiwanese territories, a thinly veiled assertion of jurisdiction over contested waters. The PLA’s use of restricted navigation and flight warnings in these sectors illustrates its ability to generate operational disruption on short notice while maintaining the diplomatic posture of a training event.
In Taipei, the government has responded with a calibrated show of readiness. Taiwan’s military has initiated its own Rapid Response Exercises, placing its air, naval, and missile defense assets on heightened alert. The Ministry of National Defense confirmed that Taiwan’s forces are closely tracking PLA units while maintaining a doctrine of non-escalation. Yet this restraint is paired with clear political messaging. Officials described the drills as part of a long-term campaign of intimidation and used the occasion to reinforce their case for continued investment in asymmetric defense systems, ranging from mobile coastal missile launchers to hardened air defense positions capable of surviving saturation strikes. The political leadership, just weeks before Taiwan’s presidential election, is also framing Justice Mission 2025 as further evidence that Beijing’s dialogue offers are consistently undercut by military pressure.
For Beijing, the timing and design of this operation serve several converging strategic purposes. The drills follow the U.S. announcement of a new arms package for Taiwan and coincide with fresh Chinese sanctions on American defense firms. They also arrive amid increased security coordination between Japan and Taiwan, which China views with growing concern. In this context, Justice Mission 2025 is calibrated to send overlapping signals: to Washington, a warning that support for Taipei will carry military consequences; to Tokyo, a reminder of how closely its southwestern islands lie to potential flashpoints; and to regional audiences, a demonstration of how quickly China can generate multidomain force around Taiwan without formally crossing into open conflict.
That complexity is not lost on Japan, where national security planners are watching these exercises with growing alarm. Tokyo has stated repeatedly that any crisis in the Taiwan Strait would directly implicate Japanese security. The PLA’s decision to stage drills that stop just short of entering Japan’s exclusive economic zone is a studied provocation, meant to showcase operational reach while avoiding overt escalation. For Southeast Asia and global trade partners reliant on the stability of the Taiwan Strait, the exercise underscores the fragility of regional commerce. Notices to airmen and mariners issued during the drills have already disrupted civilian traffic, showing how Beijing can inflict economic pressure without declaring a blockade, leveraging the fiction of “temporary exercises” to shape strategic outcomes.
Justice Mission 2025 represents an inflection point in the PLA’s evolution toward joint integrated warfare. It sharpens China’s ability to synchronize its naval, air, missile, and coast guard forces under a common command structure, rehearsing not only attack vectors but also logistics, targeting coordination, and real-time surveillance. Repetition of these encirclement maneuvers familiarizes commanders with Taiwan’s critical approaches and response timelines. For Taipei, the pattern increases strain on command-and-control structures, as the line between drills and preparation for a real offensive continues to blur. The cumulative effect is psychological as well as tactical: constant near-crisis conditions erode readiness, inflate costs, and complicate alliance responses.
From a U.S. and allied perspective, the exercise reinforces an urgent dilemma. The risk is not only a lightning invasion but also a slow, pressure-heavy scenario where Taiwan is incrementally cut off under the guise of “peacetime exercises.” Deterrence in such scenarios depends on more than firepower, it requires credible commitments, integrated responses, and the political will to counter non-kinetic forms of coercion. Washington, Tokyo, and other Indo-Pacific stakeholders must now adapt to a playbook in which Beijing can disrupt strategic lines of communication without firing a shot.
Strategically, Justice Mission 2025 reveals that the Taiwan Strait is no longer merely a flashpoint, it is becoming a permanent zone of strategic contestation. The PLA is refining its toolkit for graduated pressure, Taiwan is hardening its defenses and political resilience, and external powers are being forced into more frequent and deliberate presence missions to preserve deterrence credibility. As long as these exercises continue, the risk of miscalculation rises, and the already fragile backchannels between capitals will face intense strain. The underlying message of Justice Mission 2025 is not about war tomorrow, it is about how Beijing is rewriting the operational rules of peacetime, shaping the future settlement of the Taiwan question one exercise at a time.