When on July 12 we described the symbolic, if utterly meaningless ruling by the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration on July 12, according to which China had no legal claim on most of the South China Sea (obviously, a ruling that China said repeatedly both before and after it would ignore), we said that “Ironically, in attempting to stem China’s territorial expansions in the region, the tribunal will likely just provoke Beijing even more.”