China Launches Largest Military Exercises Around Taiwan in Years as US Arms Sale Draws Sanctions
PLA Launches Major Live-Fire Drills Around Taiwan
The People’s Liberation Army launched one of its largest military exercises in years around Taiwan on Monday, deploying stealth fighters, destroyers, missile launchers and naval vessels from all four service branches in a coordinated live-fire drill simulating the seizure and blockade of the island’s key strategic areas. Codenamed “Justice Mission 2025,” the exercises are being conducted across five distinct zones — in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, southwest, southeast and east of Taiwan’s main island — with live fire scheduled from 08:00 to 18:00 local time on Tuesday, though initial operations began 24 hours earlier.
Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesman for the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command, said the drills were a direct response to the US announcement of an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan — the largest in the bilateral relationship’s history — approved the previous week. “It is a stern warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, and it is a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity,” Shi said in a statement carried by state broadcaster CCTV. Footage released by CCTV showed Type 054A frigates and Type 052D guided-missile destroyers firing live ordnance, while J-20 stealth fighters were scrambled from bases on the mainland’s eastern seaboard.
Record Chinese Military Presence Near Taiwan
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 89 Chinese military aircraft and 28 warships and coast guard vessels operating near the island in a single 24-hour period — the highest concentration of PLA assets recorded in a single day since Taiwan began tracking Chinese activity in 2020. Among the aircraft were 42 fighters and bombers that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, a de facto boundary that Beijing does not recognize but had largely respected until 2022. Taiwan deployed its own missile defense systems, including Patriot batteries and its indigenous Sky Bow III, and placed all military units on what the defense ministry called “high alert” to defend the island and “protect our people.”
Taiwan’s presidential office issued a formal statement condemning the exercises. “These drills are a direct challenge to international norms and regional stability,” the office said. “Beijing’s use of live-fire military exercises as political signaling dramatically raises the risk of accidental escalation and miscalculation at sea and in the air.” The statement added that Taiwan would not be “blackmailed into surrendering its democratic choices.”
US Arms Package Triggers Beijing’s Sharpest Response
China’s foreign ministry summoned the US ambassador to Beijing and announced sanctions against the American defense firms involved in the arms package — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman — blocking their executives from entering China and freezing any assets held in Chinese jurisdictions. A ministry spokesman said the drills constituted “a severe punishment for separatist forces seeking independence through force” and warned external powers against “using Taiwan to contain China.”
“Any sinister schemes to obstruct China’s reunification are doomed to fail,” Lin Jian, the foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters. Beijing has long maintained a stated policy of “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but retains a national defense law authorizing non-peaceful means to prevent the island’s secession — a legal framework that analysts say gives Beijing cover to escalate without formally declaring a war footing. Chinese state media published maps of the five exercise zones that overlapped portions of Taiwan’s territorial sea, a move that Taiwan called “illegal and provocative.”
Japan and South Korea both convened emergency national security council meetings following the exercise announcement. Japan’s defense ministry said it was coordinating closely with the US and monitoring the situation in the East China Sea with heightened readiness, particularly around the Miyako Strait and the Senkaku Islands, where Chinese coast guard activity has increased in recent months. South Korea’s defense ministry issued a statement saying it was “closely watching developments in the Taiwan Strait given their direct bearing on Peninsula security.” The US Seventh Fleet confirmed it would continue freedom of navigation operations throughout the exercise period and declined to alter any planned deployments.
