China-Taiwan tensions rose in 2025 as US arms sales reshape deterrence

By the end of 2025, tensions between China and Taiwan are higher – and more overt – than at any time in recent years, fueled by expanded US military support for Taipei, increasingly bold warnings from regional allies, and Chinese military exercises that appear less symbolic and more like training.

Beijing spent the year steadily increasing pressure on Taiwan through large-scale military exercises, air and sea incursions, and specific political messaging, while Washington and its allies responded with more explicit signals of deterrence, which China now publicly describes as interference.

The result is a more volatile status quo—one in which the risk of miscalculation grows, even as most analysts stop predicting an imminent Chinese invasion.

A year of mounting pressures

China concluded 2025 with what it described as its largest Taiwan-focused military exercise to date, launching expanded exercises in December that included live-fire elements and simulated operations to encircle the island.

The exercises followed a familiar pattern seen throughout the year: People’s Liberation Army aircraft and ships operating closer to Taiwan with greater frequency, strengthening Beijing’s claim to sovereignty while testing Taipei’s ability to respond.

Unlike previous shows of force, the late-year exercises were widely interpreted as an exercise in coercive scenarios short of outright war — particularly a blockade or quarantine designed to strangle Taiwan economically and politically without provoking immediate global conflict.

Chinese officials have explicitly linked the escalation to Washington’s actions, pointing to a massive US arms package approved in December — valued at nearly $11 billion and described as one of the largest sales of its kind to Taiwan in years — as evidence of what Beijing calls “foreign interference.”

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Chinese officials were unusually frank in their response.

“Any external forces that try to interfere in the Taiwan issue or interfere in China’s internal affairs will certainly hit their heads with blood on the iron walls of the People’s Liberation Army,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement on Monday.

The arms package continued US efforts to bolster Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses, including missiles, drones and systems designed to complicate a Chinese attack rather than match Beijing gun-for-gun.

Taipei welcomed the support but remained cautious in its public response, emphasizing restraint while warning that Chinese military pressure was becoming routine rather than exceptional.

Japan enters the framework

One of the most important shifts in 2025 will come not from Washington or Taipei, Taiwan, but from Tokyo.

In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaishi made unusually direct statements linking the possibility of an emergency in Taiwan to Japan’s security, suggesting that an attack on Taiwan might trigger considerations of collective self-defense under Japanese law.

China displays DF-5C strategic intercontinental nuclear missiles in a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing. (China Daily via Reuters)

The comments represent one of the clearest admissions yet from a Japanese leader that the conflict in Taiwan will no longer remain a bilateral issue between Beijing and Taipei.

China reacted angrily, accusing Japan of abandoning its post-war restraint and joining American efforts to contain Beijing. The speech highlighted growing Chinese concerns: that any move on Taiwan would attract an expanding coalition of US allies.

These concerns were also reinforced by US treaty obligations to the Philippines, where Chinese and Filipino ships clashed repeatedly in the South China Sea throughout the year, raising fears of a multi-front crisis.

Washington’s deterrence gamble

For the United States, 2025 is defined by striking a balance — strengthening Taiwan without provoking the very conflict Washington seeks to prevent.

In addition to the December arms package, US officials have repeatedly emphasized that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are vital US interests, while avoiding any explicit shift away from long-standing strategic ambiguity.

The Pentagon’s annual report on China, released in late 2025, asserted that US defense assessments see the Chinese military developing capabilities that could enable it to fight and win a war over Taiwan by 2027 — a benchmark that has increasingly shaped the planning of the United States and its allies.

However, US officials also cautioned that military preparedness does not equal intent, and cautioned against treating exercises or procurement timelines as a countdown clock to war.

Is the invasion coming?

The question looming over the region – and Washington – is whether China is close to launching a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.

The evidence cuts both ways.

On the one hand, the scale and complexity of Chinese military activity around Taiwan has grown significantly, with an emphasis on joint operations exercises, rapid mobilization, and isolation of the island. Beijing’s rhetoric has also hardened, portraying reunification as increasingly urgent and viewing US intervention as an existential threat.

On the other hand, an amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be among the most complex military operations in modern history, and would carry enormous political, economic and military risks for China – whose armed forces have not fought a major war since its invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

Chinese Nanchang Type 055 guided missile destroyer sails during a naval exercise. (Sun Zhifa/China News Service via Getty Images)

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Many defense analysts argue that Beijing has strong incentives to continue exerting pressure through gray zone tactics — cyber operations, economic coercion, lawfare, and military intimidation — rather than crossing the threshold into open war.

The December exercises reinforced that view, highlighting blockade-style scenarios that could test Taiwan and its partners without immediately provoking a shooting war.

The road ahead

As 2026 approaches, the Taiwan Strait remains a flashpoint where deterrence and coercion collide more frequently and more clearly.

The most widespread assessment among US and regional officials is that although the risk of conflict is increasing – especially as China approaches its 2027 military readiness goals – invasion is not yet the most likely outcome in the near term.

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Instead, the danger lies in continued pressure, miscalculation, and escalation of the crisis, especially as more actors – from Japan to the Philippines – become directly involved in the Taiwan equation.

For now, 2025 ends without a shot fired across the Taiwan Strait, but with fewer illusions about how close the region is to its most serious test in decades.