China Surrounds Taiwan In ‘Justice Mission 2025’ As Beijing Warns U.S. To Back Off

China’s most expansive military drills around Taiwan unfolded on December 29-30, 2025, as the People’s Liberation Army executed “Justice Mission 2025” across seven zones that completely surrounded the island and its outlying territories. The operation, one of several major exercise series since August 2022, demonstrated Beijing’s growing capacity to sever Taiwan from international assistance and marked a sharp escalation in cross-strait tensions driven by American arms transfers and Japanese policy shifts.

Unprecedented Scale of Force Projection

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense recorded 130 Chinese aircraft within a single 24-hour span on the operation’s opening day, with 90 penetrating the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait—the second-highest daily figure on record. The mobilization incorporated naval destroyers, amphibious assault vessels, fighter jets, bombers, and Coast Guard ships across multiple operational theaters. By December 31, surveillance systems tracked an additional 77 aircraft entering Taiwan’s airspace, underscoring the sustained intensity of the military pressure campaign.

Live Munitions Strike Closest Point Yet

Chinese rocket artillery batteries stationed in Fujian Province launched 27 rockets during the exercises, with ten impacting within Taiwan’s 24-nautical-mile contiguous zone—the nearest Chinese ordnance has ever landed to Taiwan-controlled waters. The deployment featured PCL-191 systems, ranking among the world’s longest-range conventional artillery platforms. This represented a qualitative shift in Beijing’s willingness to employ live munitions in proximity to Taiwanese territory, raising concerns about accidental escalation and the erosion of tacit boundaries that have historically constrained military activities in the strait.

Triggers: American Weapons and Japanese Warnings

The drills materialized in direct response to Washington’s December 18 announcement of an $11.1 billion arms package to Taiwan—the largest in history—including 82 HIMARS rocket launchers valued at $4.05 billion alongside advanced missile systems, self-propelled howitzers, and anti-tank weaponry. China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the transfer as driving the Taiwan Strait toward a dangerous situation.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s November statement that Tokyo might invoke collective self-defense provisions if China attacked Taiwan further inflamed Beijing. The declaration abandoned Japan’s traditional strategic ambiguity by explicitly linking a Taiwan contingency to Japan’s legal framework for military intervention, reportedly infuriating President Xi Jinping and factoring prominently in the decision to launch Justice Mission 2025.

Blockade Rehearsal and Economic Vulnerability

The exercises specifically practiced comprehensive blockade scenarios targeting Taiwan’s vital ports at Kaohsiung and Keelung. Military analysts identified tactics designed to isolate the island from maritime trade routes essential for energy and food supplies. Center for Strategic and International Studies wargaming indicates Taiwan’s natural gas reserves could be exhausted within ten days under an effective blockade.

Taiwan produces over 60 percent of global semiconductors and more than 90 percent of advanced chips critical for smartphones, electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence applications. A Chinese blockade would generate severe shortages of materials required for semiconductor manufacturing, with potential global electronics industry losses estimated at $500 billion. The Taiwan Strait channels approximately 20 percent of worldwide maritime trade by value.

Over 80 domestic flights carrying roughly 6,000 passengers were canceled on December 30 as seven temporary danger zones were established for live-fire operations. More than 100,000 international travelers experienced delays or rerouting, while flights to outlying islands Kinmen and Matsu were entirely suspended.

Taiwan’s Response and Political Fragmentation

President Lai Ching-te’s administration activated emergency response centers and deployed forces across air, sea, and ground domains, including scrambling Mirage-2000 fighter aircraft. Taiwan’s military publicly displayed American-supplied HIMARS systems during the drills as a deliberate demonstration of evolving strike capabilities. Lai characterized China’s actions as inconsistent with the behavior of a responsible global power.

Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature has rejected President Lai’s proposed $40 billion special defense budget five times in December while initiating impeachment proceedings against him. Though the impeachment lacks sufficient votes for success, China appears to be exploiting Taiwan’s domestic political divisions to weaken Lai’s administration and strengthen accommodation-oriented political factions.

International Reactions

International reactions included formal statements from the European Union, Japan, United Kingdom, Philippines, Germany, France, and South Korea expressing concern about escalating tensions. The EU declared the exercises endanger international peace and stability, while Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro warned of implications extending throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Yet concrete measures to constrain Chinese behavior remained notably absent. President Trump downplayed the drills despite his administration having approved the arms package that partially triggered them, with no immediate State Department condemnation reflecting Trump’s emphasis on direct negotiations with Xi ahead of a scheduled April 2026 Beijing visit.

Strategic Outlook and Escalation Risks

American intelligence assessments indicate Xi instructed the PLA to achieve readiness by 2027 for major operations against Taiwan, coinciding with the PLA’s centenary and Xi’s anticipated fourth term. The convergence of American arms sales, Japan’s strategic repositioning, Taiwan’s internal fragmentation, and Xi’s political commitment to reunification creates hazardous conditions for miscalculation. While no principal appears to seek immediate armed conflict, the absence of communication channels between Beijing and Taipei eliminates crisis management mechanisms as military provocations approach the threshold of war.