Day: December 30, 2025

China has launched one of its largest military exercises yet — dubbed Exercise Justice Mission 2025 — around Taiwan. The exercise included the deployment of Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, Army, Air Force and Rocket Force units in five zones on all sides of Taiwan, as well as live-fire drills and a simulated blockade. The show of force was accompanied by a message on the PLA’s Weibo page warning against “Taiwan Independence separatist forces.” In the South China Sea, however, the PLA took a brief break from its gray-zone harassment campaign against Filipino fishers to provide drinking water to a single stranded fisher. The incident — highlighted on social media by the Chinese Embassy in Manila as an example of China’s “humanitarianism” — occurred within the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone. It was widely criticized as a public relations stunt, particularly given a recent incident on December 12 in which 20 Filipino boats were water-cannoned. Meanwhile, the US National Defense Authorization Act has allocated up to a record US$3.5 billion to Manila for its military modernization. What do the PLA drills mean for regional peace and stability? And was China’s treatment of the Filipino fisher a genuine act of kindness, or something more sinister? In this episode, we examine China’s latest actions in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, as well as the US-Philippines security alliance. *Recorded on December 29, 2025 at 3pm Taiwan Standard Time Host/Senior Producer: Yin Khvat Producer: Julien Oeuillet Our guests: Tsai Jung-hsiang National Chung Cheng University Political Science Professor