July 12, 2026 marks 10 years since the Philippines prevailed against China in the South China Sea Arbitration. China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea based on its so-called nine-dash line, a feature of Chinese Communist Party maps since the 1940s. What The South China Sea Arbitration Actually Decided The case was not directly about sovereignty. Ten Years Of Chinese Defiance Of The South China Sea Arbitration Ten years later, skeptics of the ruling’s significance have plenty to point to. Manila, as ASEAN chair, is still trying to negotiate the same South China Sea Code of Conduct with China that ASEAN has been pursuing since 2002, with little progress.