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Sylvie Zhuang

Lawrence Chung

The latest People’s Liberation Army drills around Taiwan may have been testing how to wear down the island’s air defences using rockets that are “cheap enough to be used in large quantities”, military observers said.
On Tuesday, the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command wrapped up a two-day live-fire exercise named Justice Mission 2025.
The exercise surrounded large parts of the island and came less than a fortnight after the United States approved a US$11.1 billion weapons package for Taiwan – the largest in the island’s history of receiving US military aid.
The drill involved personnel from the army, navy, air force and rocket force, with stealth fighters, destroyers and missile launchers all featuring.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said 31 warships and 16 coastguard vessels were detected in the area over the course of the exercise, while PLA planes made a total of 207 sorties – more than the 135 detected during a two-day exercise in April and the 153 recorded in a one-day drill in October 2024.




Of those flights, 125 crossed the unofficial median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the island’s air defence identification zone.
“The scope of the drill appears broader than in the past with more branches of the military being mobilised,” said Fu Qianshao, a former PLA equipment specialist.
“The range of exercises was extensive, covering air defence, maritime operations and anti-submarine warfare. Essentially, drills were conducted across all operational domains.”
Chang Yen-ting, a retired Taiwanese air force lieutenant general, said “the scale is larger than before and the PLA has narrowed its distance to the island and the number of aircraft and warships crossing the median line is significantly higher than before”.
One difference from previous exercises was the use of rocket artillery systems, which Fu said gave the PLA a formidable military advantage.
“In terms of both strike accuracy and range, China’s rocket artillery systems far surpass those of many other countries,” Fu said.
“Their defining features are high precision, a long range and low costs, and they are cheap enough to be used in large quantities.”
The Taiwanese defence ministry said the PLA had fired 27 rockets on Tuesday using its PHL-16 system stationed on Pingtan Island in Fujian province, which is around 125km (just over 75 miles) from the Taiwanese coastal city of Hsinchu.
The system, also known as the PCL-191, is one of the PLA’s most advanced, truck-mounted multiple-launch systems with a range of up to 500km.
It is often described as an equivalent of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars) that Taiwan has bought from the US.


“The rocket strike could reach the entire island of Taiwan island, beyond doubt, and it could even strike targets on the eastern side of Taiwan by flying over the island, and it would be virtually impossible for Taiwan to intercept such an attack,” Fu said.
“Interception would be highly uneconomical – the cost disparity is simply too great. How many missiles does Taiwan have compared with the number of rockets the PLA has?”
Chieh Chung, a senior analyst at Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for National Defence and Security Research, pointed to the island’s difficulty in intercepting such weapons.
“They provide a cost-effective means of delivering large volumes of firepower in joint operations, compared with ballistic or cruise missiles,” he said.
“Although they fall short of a full-scale area-saturation bombardment, they nonetheless pose a tangible threat.”
Chieh said Taiwan currently “lacks an optimal interception system for long-range rocket artillery”. He said using its US Patriot or Taiwanese-made Tien Kung missiles would be expensive and “asymmetrical”, and could unnecessarily deplete its missile stockpiles.
Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor, said “the goal [for the PLA] is ultimately to resolve the Taiwan issue at the lowest possible cost”.
Chang added: “With the deployment of rocket artillery, particularly systems such as the PHL-16, China has reached the critical distance threshold related to Taiwan, though it has not entered Taiwan’s territorial waters.”
On Wednesday, Zhang Han, a spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said the drills targeted “separatists” on the island, “not the people of Taiwan”.
In another first during the drills, mainland China’s coastguards threatened to block cargo ships carrying US-made weapons.




On Tuesday, they released a poster with the slogan “chokehold” that depicted ships and helicopters blockading Taiwan in all directions.
It also featured an image appearing to show a coastguard vessel blocking a cargo ship from the Taiwanese firm Evergreen carrying Himars systems.
Taipei said a total of 16 official ships – a term generally used for coastguard vessels in this context – were deployed near Taiwan during the drills.
Taiwanese media previously reported that Taipei had used civilian firms such as Evergreen and Yang Ming to transport US-made Abrams tanks to the island.
Fu said the use of coastguard ships was to “impose strict risk controls to prevent US military equipment from being transported to Taiwan by sea in the future”.
Beijing regards Taiwan as part of China and has never renounced the use of force to reunify it with the mainland. The US does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but opposes the use of force and is legally bound to supply the island with arms to defend itself.
The latest drill did not feature any of the PLA’s aircraft carriers, which would play a key role in any efforts to stop external intervention in the event of conflict and have taken part in previous exercises.
Fu said this week’s drills may not have been suitable for the aircraft carriers, “but they are ready for deployment at any moment”.


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The drills were on a larger scale than previous ones and featured the use of rocket systems that could give mainland Chinese forces an edge


The drills were on a larger scale than previous ones and featured the use of rocket systems that could give mainland Chinese forces an edge.


Was PLA’s Taiwan drill testing ‘inexpensive’ ways to wear down island’s air defence?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The drills were on a larger scale than previous ones and featured the use of rocket systems that could give mainland Chinese forces an edge

The drills were on a larger scale than previous ones and featured the use of rocket systems that could give mainland Chinese forces an edge