China’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills: rockets in Taiwan’s waters and a blockade rehearsal
As of December 30, 2025, China’s military has escalated its “Justice Mission 2025” exercises into long-range live-fire, firing rockets into waters north and south of Taiwan while running a blockade-style rehearsal by sea and air.
This is not just political theatre. The design looks practical: to seal routes, squeeze ports, complicate air corridors, and normalise a tempo where "exercises" start to feel like the new baseline.
The story turns on whether the scheme becomes a repeatable, scalable blockade option—one that can throttle Taiwan without Beijing formally declaring war.
Key Points
China fired rockets into waters off Taiwan’s northern and southern approaches as part of live-fire activity in multiple zones around the island.
The drills were framed as coordinated “containment and control”, combining naval, air, and rocket forces.
The rehearsal appears built around blocking access to key ports and compressing the aviation picture into a handful of usable corridors.
Coast guard activity alongside military units matters because it blurs the line between enforcement and escalation.
Taiwan says it remains ready, signalling that it does not seek to widen the crisis.
The next signals to watch are whether China fires missiles over Taiwan, how long the closures persist, and how aggressively Beijing tests air and maritime rules.
Background
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and rejects the island’s separate government. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims. That core dispute is old. What is changing is the operating rhythm: exercises are less episodic and more like periodic rehearsals of a coercive playbook.
China presents this round as the largest in terms of area and one of the closest to Taiwan. It also follows heightened tension over external military support for the island, with Beijing casting the drills as a deterrent message aimed beyond Taipei.
Analysis
1) From signalling to systems-testing
Live-fire zones serve as a rigorous test of time and space, compelling airlines to reroute, compelling ships to change course, and exerting decision-making pressure on Taiwan's command rooms. The point is not only the rockets. It is the disruption map they draw around the island—where normal movement becomes conditional.
2) The blockade logic is modular
A blockade does not have to be total to be effective. If you can intermittently close routes, spook insurers, and make commercial schedules unreliable, you can impose economic and political costs fast. The drills look designed to rehearse that “partial choke” model: enough friction to hurt, not so much that it automatically triggers a full-scale military response.
3) The coast guard is not a side character
Warships are unambiguous. Coast guard ships are not. That ambiguity is the tool. Parallel navigation, standoffs, and “law enforcement” postures can create confrontation without the clear optics of naval combat. It is a classic grey-zone move: pressure without the clean threshold of war.
4) Escalation risk is not an accident—it is leverage
The more often live-fire and close-in manoeuvres happen, the greater the chance of miscalculation. But that risk also becomes leverage. If Taiwan and its partners begin to treat recurring drills as “normal”, Beijing wins room to push a little further next time—closer zones, longer durations, tighter corridors.
What Most Coverage Misses
The headline is 'Rockets'. The deeper story is logistics.
A blockade is not only a military act. It is a commercial event. The quiet power is in the knock-on effects: shipping schedules slipping, premiums rising, airlines reducing capacity, firms delaying orders, and markets pricing in uncertainty. If Beijing can make “Taiwan risk” feel routine, it can tax Taiwan’s economy and confidence without firing a shot at the island itself.
The real tell will be how China manages the corridors it leaves open. Total closure provokes unity. Selective opening divides decision-makers: some argue for defiance, others for accommodation to keep trade moving.
Why This Matters: China’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills
For Taiwan, the threat is not only invasion. It is strangulation: a sustained squeeze that forces political and economic concessions.
For the region, the stakes are precedent. If a blockade-style rehearsal becomes a repeated tool that pays off, it becomes a model others may copy elsewhere.
For the world, it is about the routes. Taiwan sits near critical maritime and aviation lanes. Disruption here does not stay local.
Real-World Impact
A flight operations manager watches routes compress into narrow corridors and starts cancelling marginal services to avoid risk and cost.
A shipping broker sees uncertainty creep into bookings: not because ships cannot sail, but because clients cannot trust arrival dates.
A family on an offshore island finds travel suddenly blocked, not by a battle, but by “temporary” restrictions that feel like a switch being tested.
A procurement lead in Europe delays a high-value electronics order because the delivery window now carries a political risk premium.
The Road Ahead
China’s near-term objective looks straightforward: prove it can box Taiwan in quickly, and do it in a way that complicates outside support.
The decisive question is whether this becomes a repeat cycle: drill, disrupt, normalise—then return with slightly sharper edges.
Concrete signals to watch next include:
whether China fires missiles over Taiwan (not just into surrounding waters),
whether live-fire zones expand or persist beyond the announced window,
whether port-access scenarios and coast guard enforcement become more aggressive,
and whether commercial disruption (routes, cancellations, insurance) becomes the primary pressure mechanism rather than military spectacle.
