this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan on Monday to showcase Beijing's ability to cut off the island from outside support in a conflict, testing Taipei's resolve to defend itself and its arsenal of U.S.-made weapons.

The Eastern Theatre Command said it had deployed troops, warships, fighter jets and artillery for its "Justice Mission 2025" exercises to encircle the democratically governed island, conduct live fire and simulated strikes on land and sea targets, and drills to blockade Taiwan's main ports.

The live-firing exercises will continue on Tuesday across a record seven zones designated by China's Maritime Safety Administration, making the drills the largest to date by total coverage and in areas closer to Taiwan than previous exercises. The military had initially said artillery firing would be confined to five zones.

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[–] kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com 97 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (12 children)

WHHHAAAATTTTTT??!??!!!?

But all Lemmy.ml dwellers said China is not an imperialist country!!!!

This must be some shitty western propaganda!!!

[–] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 23 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

Did you read the fine print?

.ml: "China is not imperialist*"

"*because all of Asia, all islands, all African countries and all South American countries already belong to China"

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 25 points 16 hours ago

Now Taiwan knows where to install the sea mines.

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 14 points 16 hours ago

Controversial opinion: war is bad 🫢

[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 14 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck the CCP and PLA. Free West Taiwan.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Lets say tomorrow, the US manages to occupy the entirety of mainland China, and schedules elections for next week. Who do you think the people of mainland China elect? A business-friendly lib who promises American companies will invest in resource extraction and privatization or reelect the guys who brought a billion people from poverty and regular famine to first world living standards within living memory?

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Elected by who? You're definitely going to see very different opinions by different ethnicities

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Do you think they'd prefer getting fucked by capitalism like the former SSRs were in the 90s, or autonomy within China, like they have now?

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 40 minutes ago

Oppressed minorities tend to avoid authoritarian states

[–] Blade9732@lemmy.world 13 points 17 hours ago

Sounds like Taiwan should sign a contract building Sea babies and Sub Baby for Ukraine, just make sure to build a few thousand extra for "future supplies".

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 9 points 13 hours ago

I feel like their analysis is, "it would be costly and risky so they probably won't do it," which could be said for literally any war ever. I'm not sure I find it a particularly compelling argument.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Naval blockades don't really work when your adversary has a limitless supply of antiship missiles

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 14 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

Taiwan's military is surprisingly ramshackle, unless you mean the US? I'm not sure they can reliably be considered an adversary of China anymore. Xi could buy a few million of Trump's crypto and all would be forgiven.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't Taiwan have well over a thousand modern ASMs in inventory, and manufacturing hundreds more annually? How would mainland China enforce an encirclement by sea for any length of time with that sort of threat?

[–] bufalo1973@piefed.social 2 points 13 hours ago

I hope they don't engage in a war. China can bomb all Taiwan and destroy everything and lose on the process a lot of people and resources. If China is not a fool, and I don't think it is, the best path is to wait (and maybe push) for a second civil war in the US to have the upper hand in a possible reunification talk. And this drills would be just showing muscle before sitting to talk with Taiwan.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

AFAIK they don't have that many of the newer ASMs, and anyway a thousand isn't really that many, especially given that Taiwan's missiles are on the smaller end of the spectrum - we're not talking KH-22 sizes here.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It doesn't take too many ASMs to sink some really important assets. Size isn't really important, if one of the mainland's carriers is within a couple hundred KMS of Taiwan, then it's in the kill zone. Supersonic maneuvering missiles that work in gps-denied environments and can be sea, air and land launched are just the sort of weapon that works great in an asymmetric conflict and to break naval blockades. The blocader has to defend against every single inbound, the adversary only needs to get one missile through the defenses

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

While this is all true, the aggressor being the largest green-water navy in the world skews the equation, plus the naval angle is of course only one of multiple avenues of attack. We can't be complacent about Taiwan's ability to defend itself, no more than we could say for example that Finland could hold off Russia alone.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Taiwan doesn't need to sink every PLAN ship, they just need to make the political cost of enforcing a blockade higher than the CPC can afford.

Ukraine has area-denied Russia's most important warm water port and most of the black sea from use by the Russian surface fleet with a small handful of homebrew ASMs and some jetskis painted black with a barrel of RDX strapped to them. And Finland did hold off the red army alone once already.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Ukraine is still being actively devastated after three years by a country far inferior to China - I'm sure the Taiwanese would prefer to avoid that fate. Finland's "victory" came at the cost of collaoration with the Nazis, which maybe was the right choice at the time, but not great in hindsight to say the least. It's also hard to quantify the political cost when discussing a one-party state - it's not like the CCP will lose the next election. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I'd prefer to support Taiwan to such a great extent that we don't have to cross our fingers.

[–] ag10n@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Ah yes, the infamous ramshackle F35

10 cent army out in force

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (3 children)

10 cent army? I want to see Taiwan armed to the teeth. They can't solo the CCP in their current state.

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Or promise to drop the "cosplaying in red" part of their "communism".

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 2 hours ago

XI did give ivanka trademark registrations.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Well the supply isn't limitless, so

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Well neither is the PLANs supply of artificial reefs

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 1 points 16 hours ago

No, but they can build faster than Taiwan. And I'm sure they have some CIWS that will reduce the number of missiles that hit, so it's a pure numbers game.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago

What's some cool stuff to visit in China that isn't close to (or is upwind of) military installations or industrial centers? Asking for several thousand friends.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 2 hours ago

another distraction from chinas intenral problems, by threatening taiwan again.

[–] bunchberry@lemmy.world -2 points 5 hours ago
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