PLA Justice Mission 2025 drill disrupts Kinmen and Matsu air-sea corridors

On 29 December 2025 the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command announced and began a large-scale exercise it labeled Justice Mission 2025, conducted on 29 and 30 December around Taiwan. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) condemned the drill in an English press release issued that morning, said it was monitoring the activity, and reported that it had established a response center and initiated combat-readiness drills in answer to the announced PLA operations.

The declared exercise zones cut across civil-aviation corridors and the air and sea routes that link Taiwan proper to the outlying Kinmen and Matsu islands, close to the Chinese coast. According to Taiwan's Civil Aviation Administration as reported by Focus Taiwan / CNA, 84 domestic flights were canceled, 68 to and from Kinmen and 16 to and from Matsu, disrupting travel for nearly 6,000 outer-island passengers. Roughly 857 international and transiting flights were affected by the activity, Focus Taiwan (international flights) reported.

China Coast Guard vessels also entered Kinmen's restricted and prohibited waters during the drill, part of the maritime component of the operation. The exercise was openly declared by the Chinese side rather than being a covert action, and Taiwan's authorities treated it as a coordinated air and sea show of force concentrated on the outer-island corridors.

Attribution is not in doubt: the PLA Eastern Theater Command openly announced and ran the exercise, and the MND confirmed its response, so this is a confirmed Chinese military action rather than an assessed one. The disruptive effect on civil aviation and outer-island links is documented from Taiwan's own aviation authority. The episode fits a broader gray-zone pattern of pressure on Taiwan, and during the same drill China's CCTV aired a drone video of Taipei 101, a disinformation element layered onto the military activity. This entry may be updated as further official figures or analyses become public.