A decade after a tribunal in The Hague ruled on July 12, 2016, that China’s sweeping South China Sea claims had no legal basis, Philippine officials and analysts say Manila remains heavily outmatched at sea but has begun turning its landmark legal victory into a more credible form of deterrence.
The Philippines brought the case in 2013 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), challenging Beijing’s nine-dash line and other claims.
The tribunal ruled that China’s...