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Mapped: China’s Military Drills Around Taiwan (2022-2025)
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Key Takeaways
- China’s military drills around Taiwan have grown larger, more complex, and more geographically expansive since 2022.
- The 2025 “Justice Mission” exercises appear to simulate a full blockade of Taiwan, marking the most extensive drills to date.
China’s military activity around Taiwan has intensified sharply over the past few years, with the latest “Justice Mission 2025” being the largest-scale set of military drills to date around the island.
This graphic maps out major People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills in 2022, 2024, and 2025, showing how their scale and positioning have evolved over time.
The data for this visualization comes from Reuters, drawing on announcements from China’s Maritime Safety Administration and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as well as analysis from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
China’s Military Drills Around Taiwan in 2022 and 2024
“Justice Mission 2025” is the latest set of military drills around the island of Taiwan, following two major military exercises in 2022 and 2024.
China’s 2022 military drills marked a major escalation in response to then–U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Following the visit, the PLA launched large-scale exercises encircling the island, with missiles fired over Taiwan along with naval and air forces operating in close proximity. Drill zones overlapped with Taiwan’s territorial waters, breaking with past norms.
In 2024, the PLA again conducted drills around Taiwan, reinforcing patterns established two years earlier. These drills helped normalize a higher level of Chinese military presence around Taiwan, with a clear message that such pressure was no longer exceptional, but part of an ongoing posture.
“Justice Mission 2025” Drills Simulate Taiwan Blockade
The most recent drills, code-named “Justice Mission 2025,” include live-fire components and represent the largest and most comprehensive set of exercises to date. For reference, China’s armed forces far outnumber Taiwan’s in nearly every category.
According to the PLA Eastern Theater Command, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force units were deployed around Taiwan, with the drills focused on sea-air combat readiness patrols, joint assaults, and blockades of key ports and areas.
PLA spokesperson Shi Yi described the drills as a “stern warning” against Taiwan independence forces and external interference, calling them a necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty, as outlined in an official release from China’s Ministry of National Defense.
These drills come amid newly heightened regional tensions after comments by Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, who suggested that an attack on Taiwan would result in a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan.
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