‘Província Rebelde’: perspectivas de conflito entre China e EUA acerca de Taiwan

Abstract

The research is inserted in the context of strategic competition for hegemony on the part of the two great powers of the international system, the United States of America (USA) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). Starting from this point, it considers what this context could mean for the future of Taiwan, highlighting how the emergence of a possible regional hegemon in Asia influences the stability of the region. For this purpose, firstly, the theory of offensive neorealism is used to guide its analysis, making a general overview of the theory, its origins and its assumptions, applying them to a hypothetical competitive situation. Then, a return to the beginnings of the conflict is made, highlighting its importance for both parties and how history shaped the way the two actors interact with the Taiwan issue. From this point on, official documents, joint communiqués and agreements that formally defined how the US and PRC deal with the status of Taiwan were analyzed. This made it possible to identify that the US policy of strategic ambiguity was a means of dealing with the rapid evolution of Chinese capabilities and their need for international recognition. However, due to the growing reduction in the power gap between the US and China, the US finds itself threatened and is increasingly showing that strategic clarity is its best option to contain China, which is also showing that it is willing to be more inflexible. Finally, given the situation of competition for hegemony on the Asian continent and the maintenance of world order, it was found that Taiwan is an important piece for the ambitions of both the USA and the PRC. Therefore, it was possible to extract three possible scenarios arising from the hypothesis of the use of force by one of the parties, using the theory and factors previously analyzed during the work as a basis. These are: maintaining the current status quo, reunification and forced execution of the “one China” principle and, finally, independence directly assisted by the USA.