Il più vitale degli interessi vitali: Taiwan nel XX Congresso e l’evoluzione storica delle relazioni tra Pechino e Taipei

The article explores the representation of the Taiwan issue in the XXth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), tracing the evolution of public discourse on Taiwan over the past decades. The 20th Congress was held a few months after the People’s Liberation Army exercises in the Taiwan strait, a moment of international tension that had led Western analysts and journalists to hypothesize a “Fourth strait Crisis”. Since 2020, Beijing appears determined to outline a “new normal” in relations in the Straits: with the numbers of incursions into the air defense identification space growing exponentially while references to the need for a solution to the Taiwanese question become increasingly frequent. The article identifies elements of continuity and discontinuity in the CCP’s approach towards Taiwan. The main discontinuity emerges from the definitive abandonment of a path of rapprochement between the two sides of the strait assisted by a minority part of Taiwanese civil society. The main elements of continuity are the coercive dimension as the only possible solution in the vision of the CCP, even the need of a peaceful negotiation is still present, and the absence of a time frame, or a deadline, for the process desired by Beijing.