A UNITED Nations arbitration tribunal will most likely rule against China in the case brought by the Philippines against Beijing’s nine-dash-line claim to almost the entire South China Sea region, according to the director of a Washington-based think tank.

But while China may refuse to recognize the ruling, it would not want to be “branded an international outlaw,” so that an eventual compromise with the Philippines might be possible, said Gregory Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), in an analysis of the South China Sea situation in 2016.

Poling predicted that the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague “will almost certainly rule that China’s nine-dash line is not a valid maritime claim and that China is not entitled to any historic rights beyond the regime of territorial seas, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).”

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