PLA 'Justice Mission 2025' Drills Encircle Taiwan After Record US$11.1 B Arms Deal

Beijing’s encirclement rehearsal echoes the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when PLA missile tests bracketed the island after President Lee Teng-hui’s U.S. visit, yet the 2025 iteration adds joint-force blockade drills reminiscent of the U.S. Navy’s 1962 Cuban quarantine—suggesting China is now practicing its own version of coercive maritime cordon. Strategically, the event underscores a decade-long shift from symbolic missile shots to integrated area-denial and port-sealing capabilities, part of Xi Jinping’s broader 2035 military modernisation drive and the grey-zone pattern seen in the South China Sea since the 2010s. On a 100-year canvas, the drills mark another waypoint in the redistribution of power in the Western Pacific: just as Imperial Japan’s 1904 blockade of Port Arthur signalled its arrival, the PLA’s ability to choreograph multi-axis exclusion zones without immediate push-back tests both regional red-lines and the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence. Whether this moment becomes a footnote or a hinge will depend on if repeated “training” normalises a semi-permanent presence that erodes the post-1949 status quo without a single shot—proof that salami-slicing can sometimes achieve what outright war could not.