By Just Another First Occupier

The Chinese Communist Party likes to tell itself a bedtime story about restoring “historic rights” over the South China Sea — a whole ocean that it claims belongs to China because someone once scribbled a blurry nine-dash line on a map. According to Beijing’s internal narrative, this isn’t about violating laws or bullying neighbors; it’s about reclaiming a glorious past and enforcing order in *their* pond. Never mind that this claim was soundly demolished by a 2016 international arbitral tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ruling disallowed China’s expansive claims to maritime rights under the nine-dash line and found Beijing in violation of international law on multiple accounts, including denying Filipino fishermen their rightful access to waters in the West Philippine Sea. 0

Reality: China Is Running a Brutally Ineffective Occupation

Let’s get real. Beijing’s posture isn’t about law or history — it’s about muscle, coercion, and covert conquest. China refuses to recognize the very rules it signed up for by ratifying UNCLOS, effectively turning global legal frameworks into toilet paper. 1 The result? A spectacle of grey-zone tactics where Chinese coast guard vessels use water cannons and blockade maneuvers against Philippine fishing and patrol boats inside the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone — just 150 km off Palawan — injuring fishermen and damaging civilian vessels. 2

China has also driven away Philippine aircraft above disputed shoals, claimed to have “expelled” Filipino vessels, and performed dangerous navigation maneuvers under the guise of “law enforcement.” 3 Meanwhile, Asia’s most hyped coast guard managed to crash a warship into its own support vessel while aggressively pursuing a Philippine patrol boat — hard to spin as mastery. 4

These postures aren’t just theatrics — they show a power that is all bark and flimsy execution. If China were really confident in its position, it wouldn’t need to deploy coast guard water canons and risk collisions while it’s at it. That’s not strategy; it’s insecurity with a megaphone.

Forget the UN — It’s About Power, Not Principles

Here’s the ugly truth: international tribunals and United Nations forums are great places for speeches and moral grandstanding, but absolutely useless without enforcement. China’s rejection of the arbitration outcome — despite having ratified UNCLOS — proves that upside down. 5 No sanctions, no consequences, just diplomatic tea-sipping while fishermen get blasted and sovereignty gets chewed up in the waves. If the UN had teeth, Beijing wouldn’t be able to throw its weight around with such brazen impunity. Instead, the world got a shrug.

Tibetan Playbook, But Worse

For all their hot air about harmony and peaceful rise, China’s actions in the West Philippine Sea look damn close to what they pulled in Tibet and along the India-China border: incremental occupation and normalization by fait accompli. This isn’t diplomacy; it’s snatching territory and daring anyone to do something about it. Salami slicing isn’t a strategy — it’s bullying in slow motion. 6

What’s truly damning is this: China may be posturing toward Taiwan next. Taiwan has never — not once — been formally governed as part of the People’s Republic of China in any legitimate context outside WWII Japanese occupation transitions. Even accounting for centuries of cultural influence, the legal and historical link China claims simply doesn’t hold water. If Beijing tries to blockade Taiwan, the Philippines, sitting astride the Bashi Channel, becomes a flashpoint . . . and Beijing’s coast guard tactics will look like children splashing in a kiddie pool compared to what follows.

Speculation That Should Make Everyone Furious

Let’s connect the dots that no one in polite diplomatic society wants to say out loud: China isn’t just asserting control over the West Philippine Sea. It’s testing global tolerance for force without consequence. China wants to see how far it can push before someone actually pushes back. They’re not playing “lawfare”; they’re gambling that the global community’s reluctance to act means they can have what they want without paying a serious price. And if they think they can bumble their way into Taiwan next, they’re counting on the same bland internationalism that has allowed them to carve up their neighbors’ seas while the world yaks in committees that produce press releases instead of solutions.

This isn’t a conflict of geography — it’s a referendum on whether brute force backed by nuclear weapons and economic clout can overrule law. And right now, law is losing badly.

Permanent Court of Arbitration. (2016). The South China Sea Arbitration (Republic of the Philippines v. People’s Republic of China).


Fravel, M. T. (2020). Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949. Princeton University Press.


Department of Defense. (2023). U.S.–Philippines Security Cooperation Fact Sheet.


Reuters. (2023–2024). Reporting on South China Sea incidents.