Issuing what it called a stern warning against “Taiwan independence separatist forces” and “external interference forces,” China’s People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command used this as a pretext to announce on December 29 the launch of the Justice Mission 2025 joint military exercise, which will be conducted around Taiwan from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on December 30.

Such actions once again challenge the rules-based international order and will unilaterally inflict grave damage to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the region. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) strongly condemns the exercise and calls on China to immediately halt its groundless and provocative military activities.

Recently, through a series of military exercises and confrontational actions by its aircraft and vessels, China has carried out a range of threatening activities and practiced gray-zone strategies in the waters and airspace of the Indo-Pacific region. This behavior fully demonstrates that China not only has no interest in maintaining global and regional peace and stability but also will continue to challenge the international order and disrupt the regional status quo time and again.

Maintaining Taiwan Strait peace and stability is an international consensus and a key interest of many parties, yet China insists on using military exercises and other means to threaten Taiwan and neighboring countries—particularly those along the first island chain. This defies the principle of refraining from the threat or use of force set out in the UN Charter and violates international norms. In addition to severely harming peace, stability, and security throughout the Indo-Pacific, China’s continuing attempts to unilaterally undermine the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and the region will have a grave impact on global shipping and trade. MOFA calls on China to uphold its responsibilities as a great power and put an immediate halt to its bullying.

As a responsible member of the international community and the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded nations to jointly safeguard global and regional peace, stability, and prosperous development. (E)