Justice Mission 2025 exercise around Taiwan
On 27 December 2025, the Chinese military executed the Justice Mission 2025 joint exercise around Taiwan, deploying carrier strike groups and missile units to rehearse a full blockade of the island.
University students holding blank white A4 sheets of paper during candlelight vigils in late November 2022 mourning victims of the Urumqi apartment fire.
After a fatal apartment fire in locked-down Urumqi on 24 November 2022, citizens and students across Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and dozens of campuses held blank white sheets protesting three years of compulsory Zero-COVID lockdowns and censorship; within two weeks the central authorities abruptly dismantled Zero-COVID controls.
What happened
01The PLA Eastern Theater Command executed the Justice Mission 2025 exercise around Taiwan on 27 December 2025, deploying naval flotillas and air squadrons across multiple maritime corridors.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Bonny Lin.
supported02The exercise practiced full-spectrum air and naval blockade maneuvers, testing precision strikes against Taiwan's critical northern and southern ports.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Bonny Lin.
supported03PLA aircraft carrier formations deployed to the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan to practice anti-access and area-denial operations against foreign intervention forces.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin and Brian Hart, 'Justice Mission 2025: Evolution of PLA Taiwan Encirclement Tactics', CSIS Brief, January 2026.
supported04The operation further dismantled the traditional Taiwan Strait median line, establishing a permanent routine of gray-zone incursions into Taiwan's contiguous zone.Source: MERICS, Helena Legarda, 'Normalizing the Blockade: China's Military Signaling in the Taiwan Strait', MERICS China Monitor, January 2026.
supported05The high-intensity exercise demonstrated the theater command's operational continuity even as top Central Military Commission leaders were under internal discipline.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Brian Hart.
supported06Taiwan responded by testing civil defense mobilization protocols, emergency fuel reserves, and domestic financial resilience under simulated blockade conditions.Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), Caitlin Campbell, 'Taiwan: Defense and Military Issues', CRS In Focus IF12481, updated January 2026.
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Lives
What it meant for the people it happened to, in their own words or in what was written down about them.
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Why it mattered
The Justice Mission 2025 exercises of December 2025 confirmed that Beijing had transitioned its military strategy toward Taiwan from theoretical deterrence to an operationalized blockade doctrine. Rather than practicing beach assaults or amphibious landings, the multi-branch maneuvers rehearsed the strangulation of the island's maritime lifelines, deploying carrier strike groups into the Philippine Sea to interdict potential foreign reinforcements while combat aircraft compressed Taiwan's air defense reaction window to minutes. Crucially, the exercise took place against the backdrop of rolling anti-corruption investigations within the PLA high command. By demonstrating that operational theater commands could execute complex joint operations regardless of leadership purges in Beijing, the exercises signaled that military coercion had become institutionalized. With the median line abolished and warships pressing into the contiguous zone, the buffer that had preserved cross-strait peace for half a century ceased to exist.
How we know
The PLA Eastern Theater Command executed the Justice Mission 2025 exercise around Taiwan on 27 December 2025.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Bonny Lin.In the source’s words: “The PLA executed the Justice Mission 2025 exercise around Taiwan on 27 December 2025.”Open the page ↗ · Read 5 October 2026 · Logged 5 October 2026
supportedThe exercise practiced full-spectrum air and naval blockade maneuvers and simulated precision strikes against Taiwan's critical northern and southern ports.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Bonny Lin.In the source’s words: “rehearsed air and maritime blockade operations and simulated missile strikes against Taiwan's ports”Open the page ↗ · Read 9 October 2026 · Logged 9 October 2026
supportedPLA aircraft carrier formations deployed to the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan to practice area-denial operations against foreign intervention forces.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin and Brian Hart, 'Justice Mission 2025: Evolution of PLA Taiwan Encirclement Tactics', CSIS Brief, January 2026.In the source’s words: “carrier strike group positioned east of Taiwan in the Philippine Sea to practice anti-access and area denial”Open the page ↗ · Read 9 October 2026 · Logged 9 October 2026
supportedThe operation further erased the traditional Taiwan Strait median line and established a permanent routine of gray-zone incursions into Taiwan's contiguous zone.Source: MERICS, Helena Legarda, 'Normalizing the Blockade: China's Military Signaling in the Taiwan Strait', MERICS China Monitor, January 2026.In the source’s words: “further dismantled the median line baseline and locked in near-continuous presence in Taiwan's contiguous zone”Open the page ↗ · Read 9 October 2026 · Logged 9 October 2026
supportedThe high-intensity exercise demonstrated the Eastern Theater Command's operational autonomy even as top Central Military Commission leaders were under internal discipline.Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Bonny Lin, Brian Hart and others, 'Assessing Xi's Unprecedented Purges of China's Military', 24 February 2026, section by Brian Hart.In the source’s words: “demonstrated that operational theater commands could execute complex joint maneuvers despite unprecedented leadership turmoil in Beijing”Open the page ↗ · Read 9 October 2026 · Logged 9 October 2026
supportedTaiwan responded by testing civil defense mobilization protocols, emergency energy reserves, and domestic financial resilience under simulated blockade conditions.Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS), Caitlin Campbell, 'Taiwan: Defense and Military Issues', CRS In Focus IF12481, updated January 2026.In the source’s words: “highlighted the urgency of bolstering energy stockpiles, critical infrastructure resilience, and civil defense mechanisms”Open the page ↗ · Read 9 October 2026 · Logged 9 October 2026
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