I grimace at the thought of how China's apologists, agents and fifth columnists deal with the landmark ruling by the arbitral tribunal with such subjectivity. They either reject or uphold it, depending on how it suits their master's interest. They tend to negate the arbitral award that largely favored the Philippines by citing China's refusal to participate in the arbitration, which, they claim, rendered the proceedings void from the beginning. But the argument is untenable since China, as a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), agreed to be bound by its decisions being the third-party arbitrator in the interpretation of the provisions of the convention.
When part of the ruling suits the interests of their principal, these individuals cite the arbitral award to have vested legitimacy in China's actions against the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea. They parroted Beijing's lines of "indisputable sovereignty and sovereign rights" formed "in the long historical course" over nearly the entire of South China Sea (SCS). They are oblivious to the fact that the imaginary nine-dash lines drawn on the map without specific coordinates encroach on the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of other coastal states. They allowed themselves to be mouthpieces of China's self-serving narrative. But the only thing indisputable is that Beijing ratified the Unclos in 1996, along with 168 other parties. And under Unclos, no sovereignty or sovereign rights are vested in China on the part of the sea beyond 200 nautical miles (NM) from its southernmost island, Hainan.
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