American scholars believe that Beijing’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills are mainly a retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. 

The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command announced the drills on Monday and, on the following day, conducted live-fire drills in five designated sea and air zones around the island. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry established an emergency response center and initiated combat readiness drills accordingly. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. approved arms sales to Taiwan totaling more than US$11 billion, drawing ire from Beijing. Former head of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Richard Bush told the Central News Agency via email on Tuesday that China is not only taking the opportunity to prepare for potential military operations, but also seeks to “punish” Taiwan for pursuing larger-scale arms purchases from the U.S. 

Bush, who is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Beijing hopes that the Taiwanese people will feel less safe rather than more safe due to decisions of the Taiwanese government.

Ryan Fedasiuk, a former China policy adviser at the U.S. State Department turned researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, offered his own analysis on the Justice Mission 2025 exercises. 

Fedasiuk believes that by holding the drills 11 days after the arms sales announcement, Beijing is attempting to repackage an exercise that would’ve occurred anyway as a countermeasure against U.S. provocations. He also highlighted the timing of China’s exercises, saying it was chosen to elicit only a minimal U.S. response, as Washington is slower to react during the Christmas and New Year period; furthermore, Beijing understands that President Donald Trump is reluctant to risk destabilizing U.S.-China relations ahead of his planned visit to China this coming April.

Asked by the media about the PLA’s exercises, Trump said he was aware of the situation but that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had not told him anything. He said he was not concerned and noted that the Chinese navy has been conducting exercises in the region for many years.

According to Fedasiuk, China is looking to exploit Washington’s relatively low-key response to undermine global confidence in U.S. resolve. He emphasized that, regardless of arms sales or other political events, Beijing would have conducted military exercises around Taiwan anyway. They chose this time and the narrative framing to maximize doubts about U.S. credibility, he said.