O mar do sul da China e seus reflexos para a segurança marítima e os interesses estratégicos do Brasil

Abstract

The South China Sea has established itself as one of the main contemporary geopolitical epicenters, combining high economic relevance, strategic importance, and legal complexity. China’s growing maritime projection in the region, marked by territorial disputes, militarization of artificial islands, coercive actions, and challenges to the legal order established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), generates repercussions that go beyond the Asian context. Although geographically distant, Brazil is significantly vulnerable to crises in this maritime corridor, given its high dependence on trade flows with countries whose sea lines of communication cross the Indo-Pacific. This dissertation aims to analyze, through the lenses of John Mearsheimer’s offensive realism and Geoffrey Till’s seapower theory, how China’s actions in the South China Sea impact Brazil’s maritime security and strategic interests. The research adopts a qualitative and analytical approach, based on bibliographic review, documentary analysis, and the survey of recent empirical evidence. The results indicate that the logistical centrality of the South China Sea, combined with the erosion of the maritime legal order and increasing economic interdependence, imposes strategic challenges on Brazil that go beyond its traditional geographic surroundings, inviting an expansion of the national perception of its strategic environment.