TOKYO — On July 12, 2026, a coalition of 14 nations, including the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, issued a joint statement declaring that China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea have no basis under international law. The declaration was released to mark the 10th anniversary of a landmark international tribunal ruling that overwhelmingly favored Manila over Beijing.
According to a report by Reuters, the joint statement strongly reaffirmed the 2016 decision rendered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The arbitral tribunal ruled that Beijing’s sweeping “nine-dash line” sovereignty claims over almost the entire South China Sea lacked legal merit under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“We reaffirm that the award rendered 10 years ago by the Arbitral Tribunal is a significant milestone and is final, legally binding and definitive between China and the Philippines,” the coalition’s joint statement asserted. Signatories to the joint statement include Australia, Britain, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Romania, and Slovenia, alongside Japan, the Philippines, and the United States.
The anniversary comes amid a period of heightened tensions in the strategically vital waterway. In recent years, Manila and Beijing have been locked in increasingly hostile maritime confrontations. The Philippine government has repeatedly accused the China Coast Guard and maritime militia of executing “dangerous maneuvers,” including water cannon deployments and collisions, inside Manila’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
Beijing, which has consistently rejected the 2016 arbitration ruling, reacted sharply to the joint statement. China’s foreign ministry reiterated its claims of indisputable sovereignty over the region (Reuters). Beijing pointed to the increased presence of outside military forces, particularly from the United States, as the primary driver of regional instability.
“The so-called award is nothing but a piece of waste paper that is illegal, null and void, and has no binding force,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in an official statement, urging foreign powers to respect its territorial and maritime rights and to halt actions that undermine regional peace.
The diplomatic fallout quickly escalated on the 12th. The Chinese foreign ministry confirmed in a separate statement that it had summoned the chief minister of Japan’s embassy in Beijing. The summons was issued to lodge a formal protest against the joint declaration as well as recent commemorative remarks made by Japan’s foreign minister.
The ministry warned that Beijing would “firmly and forcefully” respond to what it categorized as Japanese provocations (Reuters). Chinese officials also reportedly used the diplomatic meeting to lodge complaints against Tokyo regarding other sensitive regional issues, including Taiwan.