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For the past several years, the Chinese government has aggressively laid claim to important waterways and small island chains in the South China Sea that are contested by many countries in the region. This week, an international arbitration court in The Hague ruled against many of the Chinese claims, rebuking their antagonistic actions, in a suit brought by the Philippines through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOST). The ruling was not a surprise to anyone, as China has been brazenly violating international maritime norms for years. China’s response was also predictable: Beijing immediately dismissed the court’s ruling as biased, stating that they will not abide by it.