A estratégia naval da República Popular da China e sua influência no atlântico sul : desafios para a Marinha do Brasil

Abstract

The People's Republic of China has been growing economically and militarily, resuming its regional leadership role. This accelerated growth has been causing an imbalance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, mainly in the South China Sea and East China Sea, where issues of historical Chinese maritime legitimacy have been causing disputes among neighboring countries. The United States of America, a country that has great commercial and strategic interest in the region, and its allies, seek to frustrate Chinese pretensions through Freedom of Navigation Operations close to its insular pretensions, representing a modern version of the Cold War of the last century. Added to this scenario is the question of Taiwan, whose priority for the Chinese government is the complete reunification of the island, which had been separated from the Chinese mainland many years ago during the infamous “Century of Humiliation”. These factors motivated the large investment by the Xi Jinping government in the Chinese Armed Forces, particularly the People's Liberation Army navy, which in 2020 surpassed the United States Navy in terms of resources, but which is still far from reaching the U.S. NAVY capability for combat. Chinese economic growth, as well as the prosperity and well-being provided to its population, depends exclusively on maintaining its foreign trade and the constant flow of raw materials and fuels for its companies, and especially protein-rich foods, to complement its domestic production, aimed at 1.4 billion inhabitants. The policy of the Belt and Road Initiative, or New Silk Road, launched by Xi Jinping in 2013, seeks to maintain the vital flow to flow and bring products and materials to China through continental and maritime routes. The Chinese interests to maintenance and security of Sea Lines of Communication have become a priority for its navy, which has been carrying out escort operations for its merchant traffic since 2008, between the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca, to the South China Sea. As the need to look for raw materials and commodities increased, the People's Republic of China intensified, from 1972, trade relations with Latin American and African countries, becoming Brazil's biggest trading partner. With several Chinese state-owned companies in the areas of infrastructure and oil prospecting operating in the South Atlantic countries, this region will tend to increase in importance for a possible role for the Chinese navy, as its interests are threatened. The Brazilian Navy, with its Strategic Plan estimated for the next twenty years, lists all the possible threats to its sovereignty over the 5.7 million km² of its Blue Amazon, and all the naval strategies needed to face them