No China Without Taiwan : Identity, Sovereignty, and the Limits of Compromise inPRC-ROC Relations: A Poststructuralist perspective

Since the inception of The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) in 1949, it has had a long-standing conflict with the Republic of China on Taiwan, following the Kuomintang (KMT)government’s retreat to the island. This thesis aims to apply Campbell’s poststructuralisttheory to the PRC–Republic of China (ROC) conflict through a discourse analysis of PRCpolicy documents, speeches, and state-affiliated media. Epistemic realism struggles to explainwhy the world’s second-largest military power perceives a comparatively small anddiplomatically constrained island as an existential threat. This thesis therefore argues that apoststructuralist perspective is more suitable for explaining the conflict.Drawing on Campbell’s theory, the analysis demonstrates how PRC foreign policy discourseconstitutes national identity through the construction of a political ‘self’ and ‘other’. Taiwanindependence is articulated as a site of danger not primarily because of material militarythreats, but because it challenges the ontological foundations of the PRC as the solelegitimate China. By insisting on reunification through legal, historical, and moral narratives,the PRC stabilizes its national identity and disciplines alternative interpretations ofsovereignty. Consequently, the thesis concludes that the PRC cannot relinquish its claim toTaiwan without facing existential consequences for its political identity, rendering peacefulcompromise structurally constrained under the current identity formation.