Archive December 30, 2025

The sixth large-scale war game since 2022, when then-Republican representative Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, has been conducted by China over two-day military exercises titled Justice Mission 2025.

As Chinese forces worked encircling Taiwan and preventing its major ports, the exercise included 10 hours of live fire drills on Tuesday.

During the Justice Mission of 2025, what took place?

According to Shi Yi, a spokesman for China’s Eastern Theatre Command, the war games started on Monday in Taiwan’s main island’s waters and airspace.

In the exercises, China used its naval destroyers, frigates, fighter planes, bombers, drones, long-range missiles, and other “mobile ground targets” and maritime targets, according to Shi.

The exercises also simulated a blockade of Keelung and Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s main ports.

According to the Eastern Theatre Command, live-fire drills were conducted on Tuesday in five locations throughout Taiwan between 8am and 6pm local time (00:00 GMT and 00:00 GMT). Long-range rockets were launched into the waters around the island by Chinese forces, according to a video the military posted on social media.

Seven rockets were fired into two drill areas around the main island, according to Taiwan’s coastguard.

Between 6 a.m. on Monday and 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense announced it had tracked 130 air sorties from Chinese aircraft, 14 naval ships, and eight “official ships.”

In the second-largest incursion of its kind since 2022, 90 of the air sorties entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), which Taipei has been monitoring land and sea for the past 24 hours.

What changes did the exercises make over the previous one?

According to Jaime Ocon, a research fellow at Taiwan Security Monitor, Justice Mission 2025 was the largest war game ever to cover the entire area since 2022.

He told Al Jazeera, referring to the area located just 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) off Taiwan’s coast, that “these zones are very, very big, especially the southern and southeast areas around Taiwan, which actually breached territorial waters.” That’s a significant improvement over previous exercises.

Contrary to previous iterations, they also made explicit efforts to block Taiwan, sending a strong message to Taipei and its unofficial allies, particularly the US and Japan.

“This is a clear example of China’s ability to carry out A2/AD – anti-access aerial denial,” Ocon said. “This shows how capable it is to prevent Taiwan from being isolated from the world and for other countries like Japan, the Philippines, or the United States to not directly intervene,” he added.

A blockade would have an impact on Taiwan’s nearly all of its energy needs, including its dependence on imported commodities like natural gas and coal. Through the Taiwan Strait, it would also alter important international shipping routes.

The drills were similar to those conducted after Pelosi’s visit in August 2022, according to Alexander Huang, director-general of Taiwan’s Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies.

It actually impacted international civil aviation and maritime shipping routes as a result of this drill. They had previously tried to avoid that, but this time they actually slowed down the air and sea traffic,” he claimed.

Additionally, the drills put pressure on Taiwan’s maritime and transportation links with those between Kinmen and Matsu islands, which are more close to the Chinese mainland.

Why are the exercises now being staged in China?

China has a history of conducting military exercises to express its anger toward Taiwan and its allies, but since Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, they have increased.

Beijing cites Taiwan as a province and claims that the US is interfering with its internal affairs by continuing to sell weapons to Taipei and supporting its “separatist” government under the leadership of President William Lai Ching-te.

Washington does not officially acknowledge Taiwan, but it has made a pledge to support Taipei’s defense in accordance with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Six Assurances.

Washington approved a record-breaking $ 11 billion arms sale to Taiwan just days before the Justice Mission 2025.

The drills were “a necessary step to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday. They were also a “punitive and deterrent action against separatist forces who seek “taiwan independence” through military expansion. In connection with the arms sale, Beijing sanctioned 30 US businesses and individuals.

Additionally, experts claim that China and Japan had a separate but related diplomatic row.

In November, Sanae Takaichi, the prime minister of Japan, made the remarks that an attack on Taiwan would be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. She claimed that a scenario like this would allow Japan to use its “right of collective self-defence” and to deploy its military legally.

How are the drills being conducted in Taiwan?

On Tuesday, Taiwan warned that more than 300 international flights could be delayed as a result of flight rerouting during the live-fire drills and on average, cancelled more than 80 domestic flights.

An undisclosed number of naval vessels had also been deployed nearby, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry, and the coastguard had been monitoring the exercises near the outlying islands. Taiwan also kept an eye on all incursions into its ADIZ, including those into the Taiwan Strait, coastal China, and nearby waters.

The highly provocative actions of Beijing [also pose a significant security risk and disruption, according to Defense Minister Wellington Koo in a statement on Tuesday.

Koo referred to the exercises as “cognitive warfare” that sought to “deplete Taiwan’s combat capabilities through a combination of military and non-military means, and to create division and conflict within Taiwanese society through a method of sowing discord.”

What was the US’s response to the drills?

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has so far kept quiet about the military exercises, telling reporters he is “not worried.”

Trump responded to Reuters’ request to discuss the exercises, saying, “I have a great relationship with President Xi, but he hasn’t told me anything about it.” He continued, “I don’t think he’s going to be doing it,” presumably referring to the possibility of real military action attacking Taiwan.

Trump may not say much about the Justice Mission 2025 exercises because he wants to meet with President Xi Jinping in April to discuss a US-China trade deal, according to William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group. According to Yang, “the US response is a diplomatic tactic to ensure that the US response does not immediately damage the US-China temporary trade truce.”

He said, “I think it’s quite consistent with how he and his administration have been handling the Taiwan issue by trying to de-prioritize making public statements.”

a newspaper that is popular in Russia

Vassyl spent years reporting from Zolochiv before delivering news along the shattered roads of northeastern Ukraine. At the age of 20, he started writing poetry as a teenager, went to Kharkiv for literature, and then joined the neighborhood Zolochiv newspaper. He left his job at the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, where he investigated corruption in the district, at the age of 31. He returned to the weekly ten years later.

He claims, “I can’t imagine doing anything other than journalism.”

Vassyl is proud that his publication was one of the first to de-nationalize in 2017 to be de-nationalized. He contributed to the draft of the legislation that made it possible for local Ukrainian newspapers to be privatized, which he believed would help to lessen state pressure and preserve editorial independence.

He has continued to look into local political corruption throughout the war, even though he acknowledges that the war has been the center of his efforts.

Russia “feeds on our internal divisions.” My job is to fight the lies of the enemy, he says, even if holding our own authorities to account continues to be a priority.

His life has been in danger more than once as a result of the fight against Russian disinformation.

Two Russian shells struck the weekly newsroom on April 5, 2022, at 9:30 am, partially destroying the 140-year-old structure where it was originally located. Vassyl’s normal schedule would have allowed him to work at the time, but he was spared because he stayed in bed that day instead of going to bed.

“It was late to work,” I said. He says with a dark laugh that he and one of my friends had a big night out the night before and that we had drank a lot of terrible vodka. It’s a time of war, the author declares. We only had this bottle of the alcohol because the alcohol was so poor.

That is what saved me, he said. Although I usually get up early, I was hungover.

Two shells flew overhead as he finally started moving and was walking with a friend.

“Everything exploded a second later.

Thankfully, the newsroom was not accessible at the time. Vassyl is aware that he had a lucky escape when his old desk, which is still covered in debris more than three years later, is still a mess.

I would have been dead if there had been any shrapnel in the room, he claims.

His newsroom has been targeted ten times, eight times with guided aerial bombs, and eight times with artillery, since the most recent attack in spring 2025.

Kremlin media reported that Vassyl was responsible for spreading false information at the start of the conflict.

“Vassyl says ironically,” “Apparently, I run a propaganda outlet.” Russian state television broadcast a report in 2022 accusing me of breaking the law to enter one of their villages to spread false information.

“I’ve never been there,” he said. Documenting missile remnants that have been embedded in the ground since the start of the war is something I’ve done.

Russian missile remnants could be the subject of international law-related war crimes or violations.

Vassyl claims that this article is the motivation behind my newsroom’s targeting.

The newspaper stopped being published for nearly a year after the invasion of 2022 and the bombing of Kharkiv’s printing press. Many Zolochiv residents retreated to safer areas, at least temporarily, as a result of Russian forces’ closing in. Vassyl, however, made the decision to stay.

He says, “I had to bear witness, but I couldn’t do it if my loved ones were in danger as well,” explaining how he sent his family to western Ukraine and began documenting the destruction that had taken place in his hometown.

At the time, enemy forces were only 6 miles (6,2 km) away. He recorded bombings, evacuations for the poor, and ruined structures on his phone.

Who would have done it if I hadn’t captured what I was seeing with my own eyes? We reside in remote regions. I had to explain what was going on in the world.

Vassyl self-taught himself how to edit videos that he shared on social media and YouTube to get more views.

He continues to be angry that “the Russians were still claiming they were striking command posts or tank repair facilities.” They were actually hitting a kindergarten, a hospital, and residential structures.

Vassyl became determined to restore access to news in regions that had been deprived of it for six months when the Ukrainian army began liberating the first villages close to Zolochiv. He obtained a new printing press and began his work.

There is frequently no other reliable source of information in these rural areas. He proudly declares, “People trust us, and we cannot leave.”

Kostyantyn Neoneta, the newspaper’s accountant, remained in Zolochiv like Vassyl, while two members of the newsroom made remote workovers.

Kostyantyn, who bicycles to the town each week, states, “I didn’t want to leave.” I was aware of my significant contribution to this city over other towns.