The PLA’s Last Full Encirclement
of Taiwan Was Five Months Ago.
The Squeeze Hasn’t Stopped Since.
On December 29, 2025, twelve days after the United States announced an $11.1 billionarms package for Taipei, Beijing launched “Justice Mission 2025” — 130 PLA aircraft, 14 PLAN warships, and 23 China Coast Guard vesselsaround the island, including the first PLA Navy crossing into Taiwan’s territorial waters since 2022.
The named drill ended after two days. The escalation curve has not. April 2026 alone saw 169 PLAAF incursionsof Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone. May 2026was on pace to exceed it — the Taiwan MND clocked 103 aircraft and 87 ships through May 12, even with the Trump-Xi summit briefly capping the news cycle.
This is what the U.S. Indo-Pacific commander, Adm. Samuel Paparo (USN), has called “not exercises … rehearsals.”
- 130PLA aircraftJustice Mission 2025 · Dec 29-30, 2025 — Taiwan MND
- 169ADIZ incursionsApril 2026 PLAAF tally — AEI / Taiwan MND
- $11.1BU.S. arms packageDec 17, 2025 — the trigger; HIMARS, M109A7, drones, anti-tank
- $2.10TTSMC market cap>40% of TAIEX · Taiwan's economic exposure, May 16, 2026
At dawn Beijing time on December 29, 2025, the PLA Eastern Theater Command (ETC) spokesperson Senior Colonel Shi Yistepped to a podium and announced “Justice Mission 2025” — in Mandarin, Zhèngyì Shǐmìng — 2025— a two-day joint exercise around Taiwan island. Within hours, China Daily, Xinhua, and Global Times had identical-language briefings on their English desks. Those are not neutral outlets. They are, in this story, primary sources for the PLA’s own framing, and we treat them that way: cited explicitly as Chinese state media, cross-checked against Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense daily incursion report and USNI News.
“The exercise is a stern warning against 'Taiwan independence' separatists and external forces attempting to interfere in the Taiwan question and is a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China's sovereignty and national unity.”
Senior Colonel Shi Yi · PLA Eastern Theater Command spokesperson · Dec 29, 2025
Shi Yi described the four-part objective in clean military Mandarin that Xinhua translated almost verbatim: “Sea-air combat readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive superiority, blockade on key ports and areas, and all-dimensional deterrence outside the island chain.” By the second day, the PLA ETC’s WeChat and Weibo accounts were pushing a 38-second cockpit video, captioned in English: “So close, so beautiful, ready to visit Taipei anytime.” The footage tracked across Taipei 101 and the Songshan Airport runway.
The force package was both larger and more layered than any prior named encirclement. A Type 075 amphibious assault ship and its escort group held station roughly 160 nautical miles southeast of Taiwan— outside Taiwan’s ADIZ but inside the second island chain envelope. J-20 stealth fighters, H-6 strategic bombers, DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle launchers, and PCH-191 long-range rocket batteries were imaged in multiple coastal launch postures. The PLA ETC also expanded the published exercise zone from five operational areas to seven live-fire zones— with at least one zone crossing into Taiwan’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters, the first such crossing since the August 2022 Pelosi-visit response.
For 48 hours, the world’s third-largest container port corridor — Kaohsiung — ran on a contingency schedule. The seven live-fire zones overlapped with civilian shipping lanes and approach paths to Taoyuan International Airport. Insurance Journal’s aviation desk, citing Taiwanese transport authorities, tallied the disruption:
100,000+ international travelers impacted by re-routings, cancellations, and ground holds.
857 international flights diverted, delayed, or cancelled across Asia-Pacific carriers.
84 domestic Taiwanese flights grounded or re-routed inside the seven exercise zones.
~6,000 passengerson the Kinmen-Matsu offshore island ferry routes blocked — some on outlying islands already inside the PLA zone perimeter.
Source: Insurance Journal, Jan 2, 2026; Taiwan CAA daily bulletins.
Insurance underwriters at Lloyd’s and the International Union of Marine Insurance moved the Taiwan Strait into the same heightened-premium tier they hold the Strait of Hormuz in — quietly, in market notices, not press releases. Hull-war premiums for Taiwan-bound tonnage stepped up roughly 60 basis points the week of the drill. They have not stepped back down.
Two days after the PLA stood down, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (DPP)delivered his second New Year’s address. He did not gloat that the island had absorbed the encirclement without a shot fired. He framed 2026 as the year Taiwan would have to plan for the failure of deterrence, not its success.
“My stance has always been clear: to steadfastly defend national sovereignty, strengthen national defence and whole-of-society resilience, comprehensively establish effective deterrence capabilities, and build robust democratic defence mechanisms.”
President Lai Ching-te (DPP) · New Year's Address · Jan 1, 2026
“The coming year, 2026, will be a crucial one for Taiwan. We must make plans for the worst, but hope for the best.”
President Lai Ching-te (DPP) · New Year's Address · Jan 1, 2026
Lai’s government — Defense Minister Wellington Koo (DPP-aligned civilian) and Premier Cho Jung-tai (DPP)— followed the speech with a formal request to the Legislative Yuan for an NT$780 billion (~$24.8 billion) supplementary defense budgetstretched through 2033. Combined with Taiwan’s FY2026 baseline of roughly $31 billion (3.3% of GDP), it is the most aggressive multi-year defense ramp Taipei has ever committed to in peacetime. Six procurements totaling NT$208.77 billion (~$6.6 billion)were signed by April 2026. A second tranche of U.S. arms — expected to include PAC-3 MSE and NASAMS — is anticipated to add roughly $14 billion more.
“In the face of China's rising expansionist ambitions, the international community is watching to see whether the Taiwanese people have the resolve to defend themselves.”
President Lai Ching-te (DPP) · New Year's Address · Jan 1, 2026
There is no named PLA encirclement underway as of this writing. That is the point. The post-Justice Mission baseline is now higher than the pre-Justice Mission ceiling.
Three current vectors define the May 2026 squeeze:
PLA Southern Theater Command deployed an unusual package of surface combatants, H-6 bomber sorties, and a Yuneng ELINT surveillance vessel into the South China Sea to monitor Balikatan 2026— the largest joint US-PH exercise in the drill’s 40-year history, with Japan, Australia, and Canadajoining as full participants for the first time. AEI’s May 8, 2026 China-Taiwan update logged at least 11 PLAN surface vessels in shadowing positions across the Bashi Channel and Luzon Strait. This is the encirclement-by-proxy: pressure on Taiwan’s southern flank without a named drill the PLA has to fold up afterward.
Taiwan’s MND logged 169 PLAAF aircraft incursionsof its air-defense identification zone in April 2026 alone — a monthly figure that, two years ago, would have been a record. Today it is a midrange month. The AEI tracker’s May 1, 2026 update flagged the figure as baseline elevated, not spike. May 2026 month-to-date through May 12: 103 aircraft and 87 ships, on pace to match April even with the Trump-Xi summit consuming Beijing’s top-line attention.
The first HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems from the December 2025 $11.1 billion package began arriving at Taiwanese army depots in late March 2026. Public photos surfaced in early April. The second anticipated U.S. tranche — roughly $14 billion, expected to include PAC-3 MSE interceptors and NASAMSair-defense systems — is the next friction point. CENTCOM commander testimony aside, INDOPACOM under Adm. Samuel Paparo (USN) has been the service voice publicly framing the tranche as a deterrence investment, not a political gift.
Layered over all of it: the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, May 13-15, 2026 — the first U.S.-China leader-level meeting on Chinese soil in eight years. Trade was the published agenda. Taiwan was, according to both Reuters and the U.S. State Department’s post-summit readout, “raised by both sides.”
Every conversation about Taiwan’s strategic value eventually arrives at the same building: TSMC’s Fab 18 in Tainan. As of May 16, 2026, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company carries a market capitalization of roughly $2.10 trillion — more than 40% of the entire TAIEX index and the foundry behind a supermajority of the world’s leading- edge logic chips. The 3nm node is in volume production at TSMC’s Hsinchu and Tainan fabs. The 2nm node is on schedule. A serious military disruption of that footprint — even a non-kinetic one, like the kind of port and air closure Justice Mission 2025 rehearsed — would be the most consequential economic event of the post-pandemic decade.
The Lai government’s NT$780 billion supplementary budget is not abstract. A meaningful share of it is earmarked for port hardening, fuel-reserve dispersion, undersea-cable redundancy, and grid backupfor the science parks where TSMC operates. Taiwan is, in effect, fortifying the world’s most important factory.
“Their aggressive manoeuvres around Taiwan right now are not exercises as they call them. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland.”
Adm. Samuel Paparo (USN) · INDOPACOM Commander · 2025-2026 public statements
Adm. Samuel Paparo’s phrasing — rehearsals, not exercises — is the line that has structured U.S. service-level commentary on PLA Taiwan operations ever since. It is the cleanest available statement that the uniformed Indo-Pacific commander does not believe Beijing is performing for an audience. He believes Beijing is iterating a plan.
The civilian side of the U.S. response came two days later. Principal Deputy State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott issued a written statement on Jan 1, 2026:
“China's military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan and others in the region increase tensions unnecessarily. The United States supports peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and opposes unilateral changes to the status quo, including by force or coercion.”
Tommy Pigott · Principal Deputy Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State · Jan 1, 2026
That language — “increase tensions unnecessarily”— is the standard State Department formulation for “you started this.” In January 2026, the G7 Foreign Ministers issued a joint statement echoing it, the first multilateral condemnation of a PLA Taiwan exercise since the August 2022 Pelosi-response surge. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (R) coordinated the U.S. line; CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper (USN) reinforced it before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 14, 2026.
President Donald Trump (R)took a different tone. Asked about Justice Mission 2025 at a Mar-a-Lago press gaggle on December 29, he was unbothered. The framing — verbatim from the gaggle, notfrom a Truth Social post — was that the PLA had been doing “naval exercises” in those waters for twenty years and that he had a great relationship with President Xi. The remark was widely reported by Reuters and the wires within the hour.
Nothing worries me. I have a great relationship with President Xi. They've been doing naval exercises in that area for 20 years.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Verbatim quote, paraphrased here for the editorial Truth Social card format. Source: Reuters / White House press pool.
The administration supports a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues and continues to deliver on the Taiwan Relations Act, including the December $11.1 billion defense package and the second tranche now in interagency review.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased commentary reflecting the administration's stated posture across multiple briefings and the May 14 Cooper testimony.
The Trump-Xi summit on May 13-15, 2026 was the first in-person meeting between the two leaders in Beijing since 2017. Trade tariffs were the headline. The U.S. State Department’s post-summit readout described the Taiwan question as “raised by both sides — the U.S. reaffirmed the Taiwan Relations Act and one-China policy framework; the People’s Republic of China reiterated its position.” No movement, in either direction, was announced.
Taiwan’s MND publishes a daily PLA-activity bulletin on X, in English, no commentary attached. The accounts below are the three feeds with the cleanest signal-to-noise on the Strait right now.
Justice Mission 2025: 130 PLA aircraft, 14 PLAN warships, and 23 China Coast Guard vessels detected operating around Taiwan in past 24h. 7 live-fire zones declared. First PLAN crossing into Taiwan's territorial waters since 2022. ROC Armed Forces have responded with appropriate forces.
Month-to-date PLA activity around Taiwan: 103 aircraft and 87 ships. ROC Armed Forces continue monitoring, dispatching CAP and ships, and deploying coastal land-based missile systems as appropriate.
Adm. Paparo on PLA Taiwan operations: 'Their aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises as they call them. They are rehearsals.' INDOPACOM maintains a campaign posture across the Indo-Pacific to deter coercion.
China's military activities and rhetoric toward Taiwan and others in the region increase tensions unnecessarily. The United States supports peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and opposes unilateral changes to the status quo, including by force or coercion.
Aug 4-7, 2022.Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taipei. The PLA stages its first major modern encirclement — the “Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis” — with live-fire zones overlapping Taiwan’s territorial waters for the first time since 1996.
April 2023. Joint Sword (3-day exercise) follows the Tsai-McCarthy meeting in California.
May 20, 2024.Lai Ching-te (DPP) inaugurated as Taiwan’s president.
May 23-24, 2024.Joint Sword-2024A — the first named encirclement of Lai’s term.
Oct 14, 2024. Joint Sword-2024B.
Dec 9-11, 2024.Largest unnamed PLAN deployment in decades. No exercise name — just ships and aircraft.
Apr 1-2, 2025. Strait Thunder-2025A.
Nov 7, 2025. Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi (LDP)tells the Diet a PLA attack on Taiwan would qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan — the most explicit Japanese position to date. Beijing summons the Japanese ambassador.
Dec 17, 2025. The United States announces the $11.1 billionTaiwan arms package — HIMARS, M109A7 Paladin self-propelled howitzers, anti-tank missiles, and drones. The trigger.
Dec 29-30, 2025. Justice Mission 2025. 130 PLA aircraft. 14 PLAN warships. 23 China Coast Guard vessels. 7 live-fire zones. First territorial-waters crossing since 2022.
Jan 1, 2026.President Lai delivers New Year’s Address. State Department’s Pigott issues first written U.S. response.
January 2026. G7 Foreign Ministers issue joint statement condemning the drill.
Late March 2026. First HIMARS units arrive at Taiwanese depots from the December package.
Apr 20 - May 1, 2026. Balikatan 2026— US-Philippines-Japan-Australia-Canada drill. PLA Southern Theater Command shadows.
April 2026. 169 PLAAF ADIZ incursions tallied.
May 12, 2026. Taiwan MND month-to-date: 103 aircraft / 87 ships.
May 13-15, 2026. Trump-Xi summit in Beijing.
May 14, 2026. CENTCOM Adm. Brad Cooper testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee; Taiwan briefly cited alongside Strait of Hormuz risk picture.
Justice Mission 2025 was the last named encirclement of Taiwan. It was also the largest. One hundred thirty PLA aircraft, fourteen PLAN warships, twenty-three Coast Guard cutters, seven live-fire zones, and the first PLA Navy crossing into Taiwan’s territorial waters since 2022 — staged twelve days after the United States announced an $11.1 billion arms package. The drill ended after forty-eight hours. The escalation curve did not. April 2026 logged 169 ADIZ incursions. May is on pace to match. The U.S. Indo-Pacific commander — Adm. Samuel Paparo — calls them rehearsals. The Taiwanese president — Lai Ching-te (DPP) — calls 2026 the year to plan for the worst. The summit briefly capped the news cycle. It did not cap the tempo.