The metaphoric decapitation of the PLA took out — literally — the last of China’s military leaders who had actual battle experience. In the last 50 years, these princelings sustained their sense of entitlement to China’s leadership positions. After it gets scolded for singing the wrong song, it pulls out a sheet reading ‘South China Sea arbitration award.’ Chinese incursions fly against the South China Sea Arbitral Ruling. Part of the impunity is to show Filipinos as monkeys, with no academic platform to sustain its prerogatives.