Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
China held two-day military exercises – Justice Mission 2025 – around Taiwan, marking the sixth round of large-scale war exercises since 2022, when Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island.
The exercise included 10 hours of live fire drills Tuesday as Chinese forces practiced encircling Taiwan and blockading its main ports.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 elementsend of list
What happened during Mission Justice 2025?
The war drills began Monday in the waters and airspace to the north, southwest, southeast and east of the main island of Taiwan, according to Shi Yi, spokesperson for China’s Eastern Theater Command.
The exercises saw China deploy its naval destroyers, frigates, fighter jets, bombers, drones and long-range missiles to simulate taking control of Taiwan’s airspace, blockading its ports and striking critical infrastructure, “moving land targets” and maritime targets, Shi said.
The exercises also simulated a blockade of Taiwan and its main ports, Keelung and Kaohsiung.
Tuesday’s live-fire exercises took place in five areas around Taiwan between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. local time (00:00 GMT and 10:00 GMT), according to the Eastern Theater Command. Chinese forces fired long-range rockets into the waters around the island, according to a video posted by the military on social media.
Taiwan’s coast guard said seven rockets were fired at two exercise areas around the main island.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it recorded 130 aerial sorties by Chinese aircraft, 14 military ships and eight “official ships” between 6 a.m. Monday and 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Ninety of the air sorties crossed Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a land and sea area monitored by Taipei, for 24 hours, in the second largest such incursion since 2022.
How were the exercises different from last time?
Justice Mission 2025 was the largest war game since 2022 in terms of area covered, according to Jaime Ocon, a researcher at Taiwan Security Monitor.
“These areas are very, very large, especially the southern and southeastern areas around Taiwan, which have actually violated territorial waters,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the region 12 nautical miles (22 km) from Taiwan’s coast. “This is a big escalation from previous exercises.”
They also explicitly focused on the blockade of Taiwan, unlike previous iterations, thereby sending a strong message to Taipei and its unofficial allies, particularly the United States and Japan.
“This is a clear demonstration of China’s ability to conduct A2/AD (air denial) operations by ensuring that Taiwan can be cut off from the world and other actors like Japan, the Philippines or the United States cannot intervene directly,” Ocon said.
A blockade would impact not only the delivery of weapons systems, but also critical imports, such as natural gas and coal, on which Taiwan depends to meet almost all of its energy needs. It would also disrupt vital global shipping routes through the Taiwan Strait.
Alexander Huang, director general of the Taiwan Council for Strategic Studies and War Games, told Al Jazeera the exercises were similar to those held after Pelosi’s visit in August 2022.
“For this exercise, it actually disrupted international civil aviation routes as well as maritime routes. In previous exercises, they tried to avoid that, but this time they actually disrupted air and sea traffic,” he said.
The exercises have also put pressure on Taiwan’s shipping and transport links to the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are closer to the Chinese mainland.
Why did China hold the exercises now?
China has long held military exercises to express its anger at Taiwan and its allies, but large-scale exercises have become more frequent since Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Beijing claims Taiwan as a province and accuses the United States of interfering in its internal affairs by continuing to sell arms to Taipei and supporting its “separatist” government led by President William Lai Ching-te.
Washington does not officially recognize Taiwan, whose official name is the Republic of China, but it has pledged to help Taipei defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and the Six Assurances of 1982.
Mission Justice 2025 came just days after Washington approved a record $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that the drills were “a punitive and deterrent action against separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ through military buildup, and a necessary measure to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Beijing sanctioned 30 American companies and individuals about the sale of arms.
Experts also say the exercises were linked to a separate but related diplomatic conflict between China and Japan.
Beijing was angered in November by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks that an attack on Taiwan would constitute a “situation threatening the survival” of Japan. Such a scenario would legally allow Japan to exercise its “right of collective self-defense” and deploy its military, she said.
How is Taiwan responding to the exercises?
Taiwan canceled more than 80 domestic flights on Tuesday and warned that more than 300 international flights could be delayed due to flight diversions during live-fire exercises.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the coast guard was monitoring the exercises near the outlying islands and that an undisclosed number of military ships had also been deployed nearby. Taipei also monitored all incursions into its ADIZ, including the Taiwan Strait, parts of the Chinese coast and the waters around Taiwan.
In a statement on Tuesday, Defense Minister Wellington Koo said: “[Beijing’s] highly provocative actions seriously undermine regional peace and stability [and] also pose a significant security risk and disruption to shipping vessels, commercial activities and air routes.
Koo described the exercises as a form of “cognitive warfare” aimed at “depleting Taiwan’s combat capabilities through a combination of military and non-military means, and creating division and conflict within Taiwanese society through a strategy to sow discord.”
How did the United States react to the exercises?
US President Donald Trump has so far remained tight-lipped about the military exercises, telling reporters on Monday that he was “not worried”.
“I have a great relationship with President Xi and he hasn’t said anything to me about it,” Trump said when asked about the exercises at a news conference, according to Reuters. “I don’t believe he will do it,” he added, apparently referring to the prospect of actual military action targeting Taiwan.
William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Trump may avoid saying much about the Justice Mission 2025 exercises because he hopes to meet President Xi Jinping in April to discuss a U.S.-China trade deal. “This is a diplomatic strategy to ensure that the U.S. response will not immediately disrupt the temporary trade truce between the United States and China,” Yang said.
“I think this is very consistent with the way he and his administration have handled the Taiwan issue by trying to deprioritize public statements,” he said.
