Filipinos gleefully send 'Chexit' tweets after South China Sea ruling
Filipinos are flooding Twitter with celebrations after an international tribunal ruled in its favour against China's assertions that the larger country owns a number of disputed islands in the South China Sea.
China has been tussling with other countries in the region such as the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan, over a group of islands and the waters around them. China's claims are in large part backed by a 1947 map showing a U-shaped string of dashes encircling a large area of the sea.
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On Tuesday, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague overturned its claims, saying there was "no legal basis for China to claim historic rights" within the boundary it drew.
The tribunal also said that China's claims had violated the Philippines' sovereign rights.
Since the case was brought to the court by the Philippines, Filipinos were out campaigning on the day leading up to the decision, and later in celebration of the victory.
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China's angry reaction
China barely masked its angry reaction to the tribunal's decision. State-run media ran headlines putting down the decision: "Law-abusing tribunal issues ill-founded award on South China Sea arbitration," read one of the headlines on the official Xinhua paper.
The Chinese ministry of foreign affairs released a statement saying: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China solemnly declares that the award is null and void and has no binding force. China neither accepts nor recognizes it."
On microblogging platform Weibo, official newspapers condemned the decision. People's Daily called the case a "political farce," and said China would not give up its "territorial rights" to a tribunal "without any legitimacy."
Chinese tourists in The Hague sang the national anthem in protest:
The defense ministry also added that it did not plan to withdraw its armed forces in the area.
Bloomberg pointed out that while the tribunal's decision is legally binding, it may not be able to enforce it.
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
