China in the Taiwan Strait: March 2025
National security: On March 13, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te delivered a speech introducing seventeen strategies to counter the island’s major national security threats. He labeled the People’s Republic of China (PRC) a “foreign hostile force” and announced plans to reestablish military courts during peacetime in order to more effectively address crimes such as espionage, information leaking, and insubordination within the armed forces. The military courts were abolished in 2013 amid concerns of mishandled inquiries and rights abuses against service members. During a question-and-answer period with legislators, Lai indicated that he was attempting to reintroduce the courts in response to recent Chinese efforts to entice Taiwanese military personnel to spy for China. Lai’s speech also laid out strategies to counter Chinese threats to Taiwan’s security, focused on protecting national identity and sovereignty; countering espionage and China’s United Front strategy (their push to influence Taiwanese people’s views on China and nationality); and establishing guidelines around cross-strait exchanges and business activities. Chinese state-run media responded to the speech by publishing a cartoon depicting Lai as a green parasite, while Taiwan was depicted on fire, surrounded by Chinese military platforms. Chinese officials denounced Lai as a “destroyer of cross-straits peace” and a “creator of crisis,” while Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office told the media China would have “no choice but to take decisive measures . . . if Taiwan independence separatist forces dare to cross the red line . . . those who play with fire will surely be burned.”
As it is obliged to do every four years, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) published its 2025 Quadrennial Defense Review on March 18. The MND’s central focuses from the last review—resolute defense and multilayered deterrence—remained. The review included an increased emphasis on working with regional partners to reinforce collective deterrence and on strengthening ties with the United States. The report called the United States Taiwan’s most important international backer and outlined Taiwan’s intent to boost military exchanges, intelligence sharing, high-level strategic dialogues, and other types of cooperation with the United States. The review also highlighted efforts to increase whole-of-society resilience, an emphasis of the Lai administration that focuses on strengthening and galvanizing all aspects of Taiwanese society against security threats.
On March 12, Taiwan’s legislature rejected a motion by the Lai administration urging it to reconsider budget cuts that would affect, in part, the island’s defense spending. Later in the month, Lai announced new nominees to the constitutional court; bringing a case in front of the court is likely to become his administration’s last available venue to dispute the legislative opposition’s proposed budget cuts.
Triangular relations: New U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby asserted during his March 4 Senate confirmation hearing Taiwan should increase its annual defense spending to approximately 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), from approximately 2.5 percent, to deter a Chinese invasion, echoing then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments to the Washington Post in September 2024. Taiwanese officials, including Premier Cho Jung-tai and Defense Minister Wellington Koo pushed back publicly, arguing that Taiwan did not have the capacity to spend 10 percent of its GDP on defense and that Taiwan alone would determine its annual defense spending. Lai, though, announced that he would seek legislative approval to increase defense spending to over 3 percent of GDP in 2025 and continue to increase it in subsequent years. Also during his hearing, Colby repeatedly emphasized the importance to U.S. interests of defending Taiwan and preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia. In his written testimony [PDF], Colby stated that Taiwan “is very important to the United States, but . . . it is not an existential interest . . . the core American interest is in denying China regional hegemony.”
On March 7, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that President Trump was confident Chinese leader Xi Jinping would not move to invade Taiwan during Trump’s presidency. In a March 20 interview, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told podcast host Hugh Hewitt that Trump believed there should not be any violent or extortion-based change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be “[delayed and deterred] by making the price of taking Taiwan higher than what [Xi] perceives to be the benefit” of such an invasion. However, he warned that Xi wanted annexing Taiwan to be the “defining crown jewel of his time in power.”
Maritime security: It was yet another month of tension over China’s suspected involvement in illegal maritime activity in the waters surrounding Taiwan. Legislators are reportedly considering proposing new legislation, tentatively titled the Undersea Cable Act, to give special legal protections to cables and give Taiwan’s Coast Guard increased options for recourse against those mariners accused of intentionally damaging them. The legislative action would follow repeated accusations by Taipei that Beijing is directing cargo ships to obtain foreign registrations and sail around Taiwan, dragging their anchors in a deliberate attempt to sabotage Taiwan’s telecommunications cables lying on the sea floor. In February, the coast guard even boarded one such ship. On March 23, it seized a second unwelcome ship in its restricted waters off the coast of Yong’an after the tanker’s captain repeatedly evaded calls to stop and submit to an inspection. Officials reportedly believed the vessel to be a refueling ship providing support to other Chinese ships operating near Taiwan illegally. The ship had no registration, port of registry, or official name (with only an illegible, smeared name painted on the side). According to officials, all six crew aboard the vessel were PRC nationals, though they were not carrying any identification documents. The crew was detained.
In late March, new images surfaced of the PRC’s Shuiqiao military barges. Experts say the massive barges could allow Chinese military personnel and equipment to bypass certain Taiwanese coastal defenses and ease a beach landing during a potential invasion. On March 21, the coast guard drove thirty-five Chinese fishing boats out of Taiwan’s restricted waters surrounding Pratas Island. Pratas is a Taiwan-administered atoll in the South China Sea, and due to its status as a Taiwanese marine national park, fishing in its surrounding waters is illegal. Since January, Taiwan has expelled seventy-seven PRC-registered fishing vessels from the area.
The Chinese government reacted strongly to a March 27 collision between a Taiwanese naval vessel and a Chinese civilian fishing boat, accusing Taiwan of malicious activity. Taiwan’s MND promised to investigate the incident and dismissed the Chinese accusation. The vessels collided in international waters forty-five nautical miles off the coast of Taichung in the Taiwan Strait. No injuries were reported as a result of the event.
“Rehearsals”: The trend of intensive Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan continued throughout March. On March 17, Taiwan’s MND detected fifty-nine PRC military aircraft and nine People’s Liberation Army (PLA) navy ships in the waters around the island. Chinese government spokespeople indicated the joint air and naval exercises were a response to Lai’s support for Taiwan independence, criticizing him for restricting people-to-people exchanges between Taiwan and the PRC. The PRC foreign ministry also connected the drills to the U.S. State Department’s decision in February to remove the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence” from an online fact sheet about U.S.-Taiwan relations. At the time, the state department called that removal a “routine” revision; responding to a question about March’s drills around Taiwan, a Chinese government spokesperson said the U.S. State Department had removed “important statements” and had “gravely backpedaled on its position on Taiwan-related issues.” March’s exercises followed last month’s comments by Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who stated that Chinese military demonstrations surrounding Taiwan are “not exercises; they are rehearsals.” In March, 311 PLA aircraft violated Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone.
The same day the PRC launched its joint exercises, Taiwan’s army began its own exercises on the Tamsui River. Involving M3 amphibious rigs, small assault boats, and an Apache helicopter, among other platforms, the drills simulated obstructing access to the river, which flows northwest from Taipei directly out to the Taiwan Strait and could be used by China as a route to penetrate Taiwan during an invasion. On March 8, Taiwan completed this year’s so-called sky horse drills, which are live-fire exercises designed to test anti-tank, wire-guided missiles. On March 23, reports from February that Taiwan had deployed its sixty-sixth marine brigade to guard Taipei’s Songshan Airport in preparation for China’s likely targeting of the capital’s critical infrastructure during a potential conflict were confirmed when President Lai and Defense Minister Koo toured the airport. Lai and Koo inspected the troops and were briefed on their role in guarding Taipei and its critical airport infrastructure.
As part of the Lai administration’s whole-of-society resilience plan, Taiwan carried out its first comprehensive civil defense drill on March 27. The port city of Tainan practiced for a crisis caused by a massive explosion coinciding with a natural disaster, in which the local government had manage the damage without the help of the military (which, in the event of an attack, would be occupied with defense and unable to assist). Such drills are meant to find gaps and failures in Taiwanese society’s capacity to remain functioning during a potential conflict. One such vulnerability could lie in the island’s food security, an issue Agriculture Minister Chen Junne-jih assured lawmakers was being addressed to prepare for a potential Chinese blockade. Lai said of the exercise that Taiwan “should rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him.” Senior diplomats from the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore, the European Union, and other countries observed the drills, which were conducted under the authority of Lai’s whole-of-society defense resilience committee.
Influencer crackdown: In its ongoing response to Beijing’s United Front strategy, Taipei opened a new front of its own this March against internet celebrities. On March 11, Taiwan’s National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residence permit of influencer Liu Zhenya, known best as Yaya in Taiwan, on the grounds that she had publicly advocated for military unification between China and Taiwan. On March 26, with her deadline to voluntarily leave Taiwan set for midnight, she initially told the press she had no intention of doing so. However, she ultimately arrived at the airport later that same day to board a flight to China, flanked by both pro-Taiwan independence and pro-unification protestors. On March 21, the NIA ordered two other PRC nationals, influencers known online as Enqi and Xiaowei, to leave the island. Like Liu, both are married to Taiwanese nationals and had their residency revoked for online statements in support of the PRC; Enqi was specifically accused of praising China’s military and promoting the so-called One China principle (a PRC formulation that states there is one China—the PRC—and that Taiwan is a part of China). Enqi voluntarily departed Taiwan on March 31. Xiaowei, upon her failure to do the same by midnight on the final day of March, was apprehended and deported.
Taiwan’s former President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) made news when he defended a Chinese student who had visited Taiwan through an exchange program run by his foundation. Last November, the student had congratulated the China Taipei baseball team for its 2024 international Premier12 league championship, adding that she hoped the win would “bring success to their motherland.” Due to the student’s previous remarks and her participation in the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation’s programming, Ma was summoned to a hearing by the NIA. Ma later told the press he hoped the Lai administration would show mercy and not punish his foundation and expressed concern that any such punishment would lead to a chilling effect, further limiting cross-strait people-to-people exchanges going forward. Also in March, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced it was investigating allegations that singer and television host Huang An (a Taiwanese national) possessed a PRC identification card or had worked with aspects of the Chinese government in the past. If either is determined to be true, the MAC indicated it would immediately revoke An’s Taiwanese citizenship.
Other mainland affairs: On March 21, the MAC revoked the household registrations and other benefits of fourteen Taiwanese nationals in possession of Chinese identification. Up to forty others remain under investigation and could be subject to similar penalties. Taiwan’s interior minister, Liu Shyh-fang, is in talks with Taiwanese leaders of religious groups, charities, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to set out comprehensive procedures and rules for those organizations that visit China. The plan would compel NGOs to disclose certain information to the Taiwanese government and public through a dedicated website. The interior minister expressed her desire to see cross-strait religious exchanges occur unrestricted and expressed concern about Chinese actions against religious leaders visiting the PRC. In one such instance, on March 8, the Taiwan Straits Exchange Foundation requested that China share information with Taiwan about the arrest of two Taiwan nationals detained in January, with one still in custody and neither able to return to Taiwan. The couple was accused of proselytizing for the Unification Church; although participation in religious exchanges through charitable foundations is permitted under some circumstances in the PRC, evangelizing to the Chinese public is illegal. In early March, a Taiwanese NGO publicly accused the legislative caucus whip for the opposition KMT of claiming to represent the Taiwanese government while lobbying in Hong Kong following travel to China.
In March, Taiwan launched an investigation of eleven Chinese technology companies including Ark Microelectronics and semiconductor-chip manufacturing giant Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) for allegedly illegally poaching engineering talent from Taiwanese companies. SMIC is suspected of registering a shell corporation in Samoa and instructing that corporation to pose as a non-PRC foreign investor to attract Taiwanese talent. In Taiwan, Chinese companies’ operations must be preapproved by the government. It is also illegal for Taiwan nationals to transfer critical technologies to any foreign entity or foreign hostile force, and for any foreign entity to obtain information on those technologies from Taiwan nationals through deception or coercion.
At this March’s annual “Two Sessions” meeting of top Chinese government officials in Beijing, China’s defense minister issued a warning to “Taiwan independence separatists,” in which he advised Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party to come back from the “precipice.” At the Two Sessions meeting, Chinese officials expressed ongoing disapproval of the Lai administration and indicated China would continue to work with pro-PRC elements within Taiwan to promote unification. On March 26, Chinese state media reported that the country’s Taiwan Affairs Office had launched an online portal through which members of the public could report anyone allegedly advocating for Taiwan independence. On March 18, it was revealed that the Taiwanese publisher and editor known as Fu Cha was convicted of subverting Chinese state power in a Chinese court the previous month. Fu Cha had also been convicted on charges of inciting secession and separatist activities related to PRC-critical content promoted by his Taipei-based publishing house. On March 26, he was sentenced to three years in prison. The MAC criticized the lack of transparency surrounding his trials and sentencing, called his treatment a Chinese effort to “clamp down on Taiwan’s publishing, academic, and cultural circles,” and reiterated warnings to Taiwanese people about the dangers of traveling to the PRC.
An update on espionage: On March 27, the Taiwan High Court sentenced three members of the Chinese Unification Promotion political party to prison on charges of spying for the PRC. The party’s former deputy secretary-general, a former navy lieutenant, and a retired air force colonel were sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison for recruiting other Taiwanese military officers to participate in espionage activities, and all three were found to have ties to PRC intelligence officers and officials involved in China’s United Front strategy. Even more concerning to Taipei leadership, four soldiers—three of whom were detailed to Taiwan’s presidential office—were sentenced to between five and seven years in prison for providing confidential information to PRC intelligence agencies. The soldiers were paid thousands of dollars to leak sensitive military and security details and to provide illegal photographs.
