Hoffmann Tamás - Herczegh Viktória Laura: Chinese Approaches to International Law: Lawfare, Cultural Specificities or Strategic Application of International Law?
2026/9
On 19 June 2024, a particularly serious clash took place between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Philippines near the Second Thomas Shoal. The reef is a disputed area claimed by both countries, but since 1999, the Philippines has maintained a permanent military presence with the help of a warship, the Sierra Madre, that was deliberately run aground. The vessel has a permanent crew regularly receiving supplies, however, the Chinese Coast Guard has made repeated attempts to prevent this since 2021. While previously they only employed water cannons and rammed ships carrying supplies, in the incident of 19 June 2024, the Chinese Coast Guard boarded Philippine ships without permission, confiscated the weapons in the possession of the crew, and injured a Philippine soldier in the process.
Similar incidents are frequent in the region, with over 70 major conflicts between 2010 and 2020, predominantly caused by the Chinese Coast Guard. As an illustration of the tension in the South China Sea, just two months earlier, the Philippines and the United States had conducted a joint naval exercise in the region involving some 16,700 troops, which simulated, among other things, how to retake "occupied" islands. However, at least rhetorically, the conflict is based on differing interpretations of international law. While the People's Republic of China claims that about 90 percent of the South China Sea is under Chinese sovereignty, the Philippines and other states in the region dispute this. This is also clear from the statement of the head of the exercise, Lieutenant General Jurney, who stressed that although the exercise is taking place outside the Philippine territorial sea, it is "based on international law and international order."
A significant part of the international legal literature therefore considers the South China Sea conflict as a blatant example of legal warfare, i.e., lawfare, which shows how the People's Republic of China is using international law to try to gain a position to consolidate its sovereignty over the region. In this narrative, the PRC sophisticatedly uses the specificities of international law to its own advantage, while other countries, including the United States, are merely reacting to this tactic. This study aims to challenge this assumption, demonstrating the complexity of applying the concept of lawfare as an analytical category. In order to do so, it first introduces the concept of legal warfare and then the specificities of Chinese legal and international legal conceptions.