In the South China Sea, the Scarborough Shoal is stuck in the middle of a tug-of-war between China and the Philippines, as the shoal is an essential resource for Filipino and Chinese fishermen, boasting a resource-rich coral atoll that attracts a plethora of diverse fish species. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international tribunal, ruled that China’s maritime expansion into the South China Sea had no basis under international law. The court found that China’s sweeping “nine-dash line” claims and its exclusion of Filipino fishermen from the shoal were unlawful, though it did not rule on which country holds sovereignty over the feature itself. China firmly rejected the ruling, and its Coast Guard has since maintained an aggressive presence, patrolling the shoal and chasing off Filipino fishermen who try to fish its waters.

As the tenth anniversary of the 2016 ruling approaches on July 12th, Philippine government officials have reacted sharply to Beijing’s continued rejection of the tribunal’s authority. Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. dismissed Beijing’s offer to treat the shoal as a common fishing ground, stating, “We were not born yesterday.” On July 10th, Teodoro announced that the Philippine military would carry out security measures to protect the shoal while expanding patrols across the country’s maritime territory. Beijing, meanwhile, continues to reject the ruling’s legitimacy outright: the China Institute for Marine Affairs released a report ahead of the anniversary arguing that Manila’s claims were “devoid of historical and legal foundation,” as China maintains what it calls its own indisputable sovereignty over the shoal. Perhaps the most heavily impacted are Filipino fishermen themselves: Rony Drio, who hasn’t fished the shoal since 2024, said, “We won in 2016, but it doesn’t feel like a victory.” Other international actors, including the United States and Japan, have condemned Beijing’s maritime expansion in the region.

Beijing’s offer of a “common fishing ground” sounds cooperative on paper. In practice, without any enforcement mechanism or a Chinese Coast Guard withdrawal, it changes nothing for Filipino fishermen still being run off the water. Manila’s choice to keep documenting incidents and pushing back diplomatically, rather than escalating militarily, reflects a patient, rules-based approach worth crediting. Still, patience has its limits. Ten years of legal victory with no material change on the ground makes one thing clear: international rulings carry little weight without sustained pressure, alliance-building, and a genuine willingness from Beijing to negotiate rather than simply outlast Manila.

The roots of this standoff go back to 2012, when a months-long confrontation between Philippine and Chinese vessels ended with China maintaining a permanent presence at the shoal while the Philippines withdrew its own ships under a U.S.-brokered deal that Beijing later denied existed. China has controlled the shoal ever since, gradually escalating from patrol boats to research vessels to, as of May 2026, a floating structure spotted inside the lagoon itself. This pattern echoes what happened at Mischief Reef in the 1990s, where a handful of huts on stilts eventually became a 2,600-meter airstrip and permanent military installations, a strategy analysts call “salami-slicing,” where small, incremental steps are each too minor to justify a strong response but add up over years into full control.

The Philippines’ allies have offered plenty of statements of support; what remains to be seen is whether they will back these statements with consistent action. Documentation and international pressure can raise the cost of Beijing’s incremental approach, but only if that pressure builds faster than China can normalize its presence at the shoal. Ten years later, the ruling remains a legal victory that has yet to become a practical one. The Philippines has the law on its side. What it still needs is the leverage to make that matter.