At the end of the year China delivered an unwelcome surprise to Taiwan: a large-scale military exercise named “Justice Mission 2025” that, according to China’s Eastern Theater Spokesperson Shi Yi, targeted “‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces.” 

The day after the drills concluded, China‘s leader Xi Jinping declared in his New Year’s Eve speech that the (re)unification of China and Taiwan was unstoppable. Justice Mission marks China’s sixth large-scale military exercise since former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. 

While the triggers and Beijing’s responses have varied across these drills, a troubling pattern has emerged: with each successive exercise, China has normalized encircling Taiwan. These exercises dramatically increase the risks of miscalculation and confrontation by eroding the distinction between military drills and actual invasion preparation –– if any ever existed.

Yet the West’s response has failed to deter Beijing from methodically refining its encirclement doctrine. These drills offer critical insights into how China intends to isolate Taiwan, and how inadequately the international community has responded to this evolving threat.

Since 2022, and through a systematic escalation of military drills around Taiwan, Beijing has successfully reshaped the status quo by transforming extraordinary provocations into regular operations. China’s military exercises around Taiwan in August 2022 initiated the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis: drills were larger and closer to Taiwan than those during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995-1996.

Since then, the de facto Taiwan Strait median line is now regularly crossed, while Chinese aircraft are consistently penetrating Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.

China’s military exercises in Taiwan’s vicinity have not faced stark reactions: Western powers have not taken any concrete actions to deter, slow down or punish China for its coercive actions. As a result, these drills have undermined the legitimacy of the median line while negating Taiwan’s claims regarding its own airspace and territorial waters.  

Each drill that passes without meaningful consequences establishes a new baseline for Chinese military behavior. This normalization creates a dangerous environment in which the frequency of drills increases, the margin for error shrinks, and the capacity to distinguish routine harassment from actual invasion preparation diminishes.

Ultimately, this weakens the stability of the status quo and strengthens China’s strategy toward Taiwan. Beyond this normalization of frequency, the operational patterns emerging from these drills deserve closer examination.

Operational insights

Tracking the geographic zones, force deployments, and coordination patterns across China’s six major exercises since 2022 exposes how Beijing has adapted its strategy regarding Taiwan.

The post-Pelosi’s visit drills in 2022 were intended to deter former Speaker Nancy Pelosi from visiting Taiwan, and when that failed, punish Taiwan for hosting her. The seven zones distributed within Taiwan’s ADIZ were designed for maximum political impact, demonstrating Beijing’s military confidence through a show of multi-domain capability.

The selected zones were also close to key military assets such as ports, airports, and potential suitable beaches for a PLA amphibious landing –– to the northwest and west of Taipei, as well as on the southwest and the east coast of Taiwan.

In the April 2023 Joint Sword exercises, China deployed 232 aircraft — the highest sortie count across all drills — but operated without publicly announced zones, while it did not issue public advance notice for Joint Sword 2024A or 2024B exercises.

Joint Sword 2024A marked the first integration of China Coast Guard forces, a coordination further intensified during 2024B. This integration enhances Beijing’s capacity to employ maritime law enforcement assets in support of its military operations, blurring distinctions between military and paramilitary actions.

Moreover, both 2024 exercises positioned an eastern zone near Hualien port, one of Taiwan’s main international shipping ports, indicating China’s goal to block shipping lines that could serve as routes to flow energy to Taiwan and through which allies could support the nation.

The recent drills featured two massive encirclement zones wrapping from Taiwan’s west coast around the south and up the eastern approaches, supported by zones in the north and southwest.

Compared to previous Chinese military drills, the two that occurred in 2025 testify that Beijing is methodically preparing a standardized blockade doctrine, with political events serving merely as convenient scheduling pretexts.

The six drills demonstrate a clear spatial evolution characterized by progressive eastward zone extension from 2022 through 2025. Northern sector operations have remained persistent across all exercises, while the blockade strategy seems to have undergone standardization, which is particularly evident from Joint Sword 2024A onwards.

Critically, the introduction of amphibious landing ships in 2023 and the integration of China Coast Guard assets beginning with Joint Sword 2024A demonstrate growing capabilities convergence across PLA and law enforcement forces. This also suggests a gray-zone escalation strategy that blurs the line between military operations and law enforcement activities.

Another constant is the importance that access to Kaohsiung represents for China as the city hosts critical military bases such as the Zuoying Naval Base and the Gangshan Air Base, as well as Taiwan’s largest international commercial harbor.

While the drills have evolved since 2022, the two exercises conducted recently display remarkably similar operational patterns. The absence of meaningful international response to these near-complete encirclements has granted Beijing freedom to prepare quarantine or invasion practices without consequences.

This represents perhaps the most concerning trend across all six exercises: they provoke brief international attention before being swiftly forgotten, leaving Taiwan increasingly isolated to face China’s military pressure alone.

However, raising the cost of invasion requires sustained international engagement rather than cyclical expressions of concern that fade within days of each exercise. Halting this trajectory requires concrete actions both from Taiwan and from those that should be concerned by protecting democracies around the world.

Raising the cost of invasion

The global inaction in the light of Beijing’s actions has favored the normalization of military drills and incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ and territorial waters –– this is the current status quo in which Taiwan and Western powers must now navigate.

Reverting to a more stable status quo is highly unlikely and on the contrary the risks of seeing it degrading further are more than plausible. It is therefore necessary to raise the cost of invasion in order to stop this trajectory from progressing further.

Nationally, Taiwan needs political stability and to reduce polarization. The KMT and TPP continue to block the special NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.77 billion) defense budget despite China’s Justice Mission. Political compromise is critical: rather than seeking to make peace with the CCP, the KMT should aim to improve dialogue with the DPP. Equally important, the DPP must work with the opposition and stop marginalizing it.

Additionally, it is key that Taiwan continues to publicize military pressure and coercion by Beijing. The work done by the Ministry of National Defense offers to analysts, academics, and the international community the opportunity to critically engage with China’s actions and therefore raise global awareness.

Transparency also reduces China’s hybrid warfare efficiency. Drills are used as a part of China’s cognitive warfare, aiming at undermining public confidence. Enhanced transparency by the defense ministry regarding PLA’s activities ultimately weakens China’s misinformation and propaganda tactics.

Yet, Taiwan needs international support. For example, it requires support in improving its capabilities in tracking China’s aircraft and vessels, as this will not only reduce the risks of miscalculation, but also improve Taiwan’s readiness.

Collaboration with the countries directly impacted by changes in the Strait is also key: Japan and the Philippines are among the most concerned nations regarding an invasion of Taiwan that could spill over to their territories. Yet, cooperation remains at the surface and does not align with the real needs.

Finally, key actors must be clearer. Taiwan can be a key partner for the European Union’s security and tech sectors. Although Taipei and Brussels have deepened their ties in the past few years, a lot remains to be done. For Taiwan, raising the cost of invasion passes, in part, by gaining allies, and a stronger relationship between the two parties would benefitboth.

US President Donald Trump’s reaction to the Justice Mission is a perfect illustration of how dangerous overlooking these drills is. Without a wake-up call, the international community risks being caught unprepared by an invasion Beijing has been preparing in plain sight.