Mudança de Maré?: A (re)visão chinesa sobre o Mar do Sul da China

Abstract

The main goal of this thesis is to analyze territorial disputes in the South China Sea, as well as the relationship between the main regional power, the People's Republic of China, its neighbors, especially two members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Philippines and Vietnam, and an extra-regional power, the United States. Bringing the political realism school of international relations as a guiding theory, in particular Neoclassical Realism and concepts from the traditional realism, this thesis seeks to understand the position of China in the South China Sea as closer to a revisionist or of a status-quo power in regional scope. To do this, the history of China is analyzed from the 1970s, the decade that began the tensions in the South China Sea and the reopening of the PRC, to the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020, which will change the course of international politics for ever. In addition to the country's history and its relations with Vietnam, the Philippines, and the United States regarding the events in the South China Sea, official Defense documents from China and the United States are analyzed and we emphasize the information about their mutual relations, but also about their interaction in the South China Sea. We also present data on the material capabilities of both States with an emphasis on their navies aiming understand their differences and similarities. The final objective of this work, in addition to bringing to the agenda the necessary debate about high politics in the South China Sea and two of its main actors, without leaving aside so many other important characters in the region, is to build an ideal type that allow us to create a clearer analyzes on the position of States, especially the powers, closer or further to the revisionism idea to international order.