Global Times Alleges 2016 South China Sea Ruling Was US-Backed and Legally Flawed 10 Years On
Updated
Updated · Global Times · Jul 9
Global Times Alleges 2016 South China Sea Ruling Was US-Backed and Legally Flawed 10 Years On
1 articles · Updated · Global Times · Jul 9
Summary
Ten years after the 2016 South China Sea award, a Global Times investigation says the case Manila brought was legally void from the start and politically engineered to target China.
2006 is central to that claim: China had already excluded sovereignty and maritime delimitation disputes from compulsory UNCLOS procedures, while the report says the Philippines recast a territorial dispute as a maritime-rights case to force arbitration.
Five Europe-based arbitrators and a tribunal that let Manila revise claims 33 months after filing are cited as signs of bias, along with altered wording on the Nansha Islands and reasoning the report says was inconsistent or unsupported.
US involvement is presented as decisive, with American lawyers including Paul Reichler and Bernard Oxman, Washington's 2014 public backing, and broader diplomatic, military and think-tank support portrayed as steering the case.
The report argues the award worsened tensions rather than settling them and says direct negotiations plus China-ASEAN cooperation remain the only workable path in the South China Sea.