Hong Kong, July 21 : The tenth anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration's (PCA) unanimous ruling against Chinese claims in the South China Sea occurred on 12 July. In the lead-up to the anniversary, Beijing and its various organs ramped up their vitriol against the Philippines, which had taken this case to the international tribunal.
To commemorate the occasion, 14 countries signed a joint statement reaffirming their "unwavering commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, stable and rules-based, anchored in international law".
These nations were Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, the Philippines, Romania, Slovenia, the UK and the USA. Additionally, the 27-member EU issued a separate statement backing the decision.
The parties reminded China of its duties under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), describing the award in Manila's favour as "final, legally binding and definitive". They reaffirmed "there is no legal basis for China's expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea, including those based on 'historic rights'".
For its part, China continued to disparage and ridicule the PCA's ruling, even though it is a UNCLOS signatory. Senior Colonel Jiang Bin, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, commented, "The 'arbitration' is, from beginning to end, a political farce masqueraded as a legal process, and the so-called award carries no legal force in any sense. The Chinese side does not accept nor recognise the award."
In a similar fashion, a 17 July editorial by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) accused the Philippines of "smearing" China and rallying international supporters. The author, Li Weichao, said, "Lies repeated a thousand times are still lies. And illegality will not become legality with the passage of time."
Ironically, this is precisely China's approach. It claims its maritime sovereignty in the South China Sea is "firmly grounded in history and international law". It believes if it continuously smears the PCA ruling, if it makes regular outlandish claims to sovereignty, and if it ignores a legally binding process, that it will somehow reverse international thinking.
Li bristled: "The decade-long farce must come to an end. The so-called South China Sea arbitral award is illegal, null and void - nothing but a worthless piece of paper. No amount of hype by the Philippines can change that fact."
China claims it has "remained committed to resolving disputes peacefully through dialogue and consultation with the countries directly concerned," an argument belied by its reckless behaviour in the South China Sea. To give one example of how China has upped its aggression, a confrontation during a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in June 2024 resulted in a Philippine sailor losing a thumb. At that time, China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel boarded and damaged Philippine inflatable boats.
China also deploys large coast guard cutters and warships to assert illegal claims and challenge Philippine operations. For example, whilst attempting to harass a smaller Philippine vessel near Scarborough Shoal on 11 August 2025, a CCG cutter collided with the PLA's Type 052D destroyer Guilin.
In the latest incident, on 20 July, CCG personnel in a motor boat attacked Philippine Navy personnel in an inflatable with wooden sticks. This occurred at Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a garrison aboard a beached vessel.
In response to such Chinese violence, the 14 nations reminded China of their "strong opposition to the use of coast guard, military and maritime militia forces to harass, obstruct or intimidate lawful operations by other states at sea or in the air, and in so doing endanger the safety of personnel and fishermen and seriously degrade regional peace and security."
Not satisfied with vilifying the Philippines, China has now made further preposterous claims about its maritime territory. Doubtlessly sanctioned by the Chinese government, an academic symposium in Guangzhou proclaimed on 30 June that China has legal jurisdiction over the Philippines-owned Batanes Islands in the Luzon Strait between the northern Philippines and southern Taiwan.
According to one Chinese news report, "Participants unanimously concluded that the Batanes Islands constitute a natural geographical extension of Taiwan, with sovereignty belonging to China..." This bizarre declaration was denounced by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. as "ludicrous".
Writing for the Lowy Institute in Australia, the Philippines-based lecturer Vincent Kyle Parada noted an ulterior motive for China's ridiculous claim. "It is not suggested that Beijing is interested in 'reintegrating' the Batanes Islands as part of Chinese territory, as it is with Taiwan. However, while China's foreign ministry has yet to officially endorse the new claims, their supposed origin in scholarly debate and legal rumination - questionable as they are - provides Beijing with the pretext necessary to move against Tokyo and Manila and, more importantly, isolate Taiwan."
The Batanes Islands are critical to US-Philippine efforts to "contain" China in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. The Luzon Strait is a chokepoint limiting Chinese access to the Western Pacific. Indeed, defending these islands had a key role in the multinational Exercise Balikatan in April-May.
Parada also noted: "Manila would do well to remember that the 'historic rights' that form the basis of Beijing's expansive claims in the South China Sea can be traced as recently as the 20th century. They began the same way - in a room full of academics, huddled over maps, who judged themselves patriots and arbiters of the national truth. Yet, ten years after the landmark legal victory for the Philippines against China's claims on the South China Sea, the doubt laid by China continues to proliferate."
Unfortunately, the Chinese Embassy in Manila failed to scotch this bizarre gambit by Chinese academics. Ray Powell, Director of SeaLight, an organisation shedding light on maritime "grey zone" issues around the world, warned: "I've worked in two embassies. I know how normal embassies work. A normal embassy's public-affairs operation would have quickly sprung into action to squelch the explosive Batanes story with a firm statement."
Powell continued: "But that's not what the Chinese Embassy in Manila did. Why not? Because it can't. The Chinese government needs the 'possibility' that it owns Batanes to justify its newly announced claim to the Philippines' exclusive economic zone east of Batanes, as well as its new policy of running continuous intrusive coast guard patrols there. That's why it orchestrated the supposedly independent university symposium to manufacture the case for PRC sovereignty over Batanes. The government clearly isn't ready to say it directly (yet), so it left it to 'academics' to manufacture this new territorial dispute."
On the arbitration ruling's tenth anniversary, Powell also weighed in over China's illegal claims in the South China Sea. He pointed out, "China's arguments are as bad today as they were ten years ago, but let's review, shall we? 'Illegal, null and void' ... but repetition isn't legal analysis. The tribunal confirmed its jurisdiction, considered China's published objections and issued a final, binding award under international law. You boycotted the case. You lost it anyway...because your position is the legal equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone."
The tribunal's ruling did not cover matters of sovereignty, but instead the Philippines asked for a ruling on China's maritime entitlements, the status of features and China's so-called 'historic rights' under UNCLOS. Powell highlighted how the court concluded China's "preposterous dashed-line claim has no legal basis".
What about China's canard about settling disputes bilaterally? "Fine," Powell exclaimed, "start with the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea.
China signed it with all of ASEAN. It pledged peaceful resolution of disputes, freedom of navigation and self-restraint - including, in its own words, refraining from inhabiting uninhabited reefs, shoals and other features. Then China dredged and filled thousands of acres of pristine reef. It seized control of Scarborough Shoal. It created an exclusion zone. It swarmed, water-cannoned and rammed Philippine vessels in waters where it has no lawful right to impose its will."
The heart of the matter is that China prefers to exert pressure on countries singly, using its heft to club others into submission. It is also notable that not a single country signed a joint declaration with China refuting the PCA's rulings on the tenth anniversary. This was a far cry from the weighty support the Philippines garnered from countries around the world.
As Powell explained, "Beijing wants the sanctity of agreements under its own tortured interpretations ... until it doesn't. That's the pattern. Beijing invokes its favourite part of the DOC...while blatantly violating the rest of the DOC to render its argument laughable. It papers over bad arguments with worse ones. And it demands bilateral talks bound by rules it systematically breaks."
China complains the situation in the South China Sea has worsened since 2016. As Powell remarked, "Golly, why do you suppose that is? Could it be because China answered the Philippines' legal victory with accelerated aggression? Sorry, but that's not a flaw in the award. That's a confession. If China defies a binding ruling under UNCLOS and abrogates the pledges it made to all of ASEAN under the DOC, why should Manila trust it alone, one on one, bound by no rule Beijing is willing to accept above its own coercive will? The award didn't create this dispute. China's behaviour did."
Beijing is angered by Philippine calls for transparency, because autocratic regimes like China cannot abide the light exposing their machinations. Instead of curbing its own aggressive behaviour, China only knows it's to lash out. It hates the fact that the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) records confrontations at sea, with video and photo imagery illustrating how the CCG and PLA are the aggressors. Whether it is water cannon barrages, dangerous manoeuvres or illegal blocking, Chinese vessels are guilty of them all.
International exposure over Chinese attempts to dominate the South China Sea is most unwelcome for China. Just one example is Beijing's unilateral declaration of a "nature reserve" at Scarborough Shoal, with the PCG quickly exposing China's illegal installation of marker buoys. China forcibly seized this reef from the Philippines after a 2012 standoff. Such exposure lifts the veil of secrecy that China needs for its salami-slicing strategy. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns Philippine officials to "stop or pay the price".
The reality is that China fears a well-informed public far more than it respects international law.
Meanwhile, China's image and popularity in the Philippines remain at a low ebb. The situation was not helped by a 58-second video posted by the state-owned China Daily on 10 July. It showed the Philippines as a monkey being taken advantage of by the USA and Japan.
Teodoro said the video gave a "revealing insight into what the Chinese communist apparatus thinks of the Filipino people". He added, "This mockery of the lawful 2016 Arbitral Award and the video's glorification of violence against the Filipino people and soldiers expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of China's propaganda machine."
But what can you do when a country disregards international law? Sir John Chipman, CEO of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, pointed out, "During the Cold War there was no 'rules-based order'; there was balance of power, regulated by arms control. Now we have neither, and rules cannot be enforced."
Chipman described international law as "no longer fit for purpose. It's outdated, not least because it does not account for non-state actors or so-called grey-area threats. A period of harsh realpolitik will inevitably reshape international law. In the meantime, as international law is honoured more in the breach than in the observance, it cannot be the decisive factor in determining national-security policy. That pains the liberal conscience but is consistent with the liberal lament that the 'rules-based order' is dead."
Countries like China and Russia are annulling the rules-based order, and President Donald Trump is following the same course. This does not bode well for tensions in places like the South China Sea, even when the law is on the side of the Philippines.