BEIJING PROTESTS SOUTH CHINA SEA RULING WITH MODEST SHOW OF STRENGTH

[The tribunal ruled that under the law the two reefs, which were built into islands by mammoth dredging operations, were too small for China to claim economic control of the waters around them. It also said that Mischief Reef was in Philippine waters.]

By Jane Perlez

Chinese police officers blocked the road leading to the Philippine Embassy

in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Credit Nicolas

Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BEIJING — A day after an international tribunal rejected China’s claims in the South China Sea, Beijing excoriated the panel and sent two civilian planes to artificial islands it occupies in the waterway to demonstrate control.

But the government stopped short on Wednesday of sending warships to the area, and there were signs of limits to how far it was prepared to go in whipping up anger against the Philippines, which won almost all the arguments in the case it brought against China in The Hague.

The lack of protests around the Philippine Embassy in Beijing signaled that China was preparing at some point to negotiate with the new president, Rodrigo Duterte, who has been friendlier toward Beijing than his predecessor, Benigno S. Aquino III, who initiated the case.

In repudiating China’s sweeping claims over the South China Sea, thetribunal handed the government a credibility problem not only abroad but also at home — where the population has been treated to a steady diet of Chinese invincibility over the waterway.

Chinese news media were full of declarations on Wednesday that Beijing, which had refused to participate in the proceedings, would not abide by what it called an illegal ruling. Under the law of the sea treaty that China has ratified, the decision is legally binding, but there is no mechanism to enforce it.

The most damning aspect of the report was the finding that China had no historical rights over the sea. There was no evidence, the panel concluded, that China had ever exercised exclusive control of the waterway.

One of the enduring lessons Chinese schoolchildren are taught is that the South China Sea has belonged to China since ancient times, a nostrum that President Xi Jinping repeated to state media several hours after the decision was made public.

To drive home the point, Mr. Xi’s portrait was shown in a particularly prominent position — on the front page of Wednesday’s edition of the English-language state-run newspaper, China Daily, above the paper’s name.

A map of China with the “nine-dash line” marking its territory appeared in many state media outlets, with the caption “not one dot less.” The line encircles about 90 percent of the South China Sea, an area as big as Mexico.

To demonstrate that China’s occupation of two artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago remained intact, the government sent civilian planes on Wednesday to two reefs that were at the center of the arbitration: Subi Reef and Mischief Reef, in the Spratly archipelago.

The tribunal ruled that under the law the two reefs, which were built into islands by mammoth dredging operations, were too small for China to claim economic control of the waters around them. It also said that Mischief Reef was in Philippine waters.

China’s national broadcaster, CCTV, showed footage of the civilian planes and their crew standing in the sunshine on the runways. There appeared to be no passengers on the aircraft, emblazoned with the logos of Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines.

In another sign intended to show the Chinese public that the government’s control of the sea remained untouched, the People’s Liberation Army newspaper announced the launch of a new advanced missile destroyer. The navy will soon receive a “massive number” of destroyers that would protect China’s maritime interests, CCTV said.

A fierce attack on the credentials of the tribunal itself was led by the deputy foreign minister, Liu Zhenmin, who lashed out at the judges and experts who decided the case, calling them biased and anti-Asian.

“Do they know about Asia?” he asked at a news conference on Wednesday. “Do they know about Asia’s culture? Do they know about the South China Sea issue?”

He continued: “Do they understand the complex regional politics in Asia? Do they realize the history of the South China Sea? How on earth could they deliver a just award.”

The panel consisted of five legal experts on the law of the sea from France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Ghana.

One of Mr. Liu’s complaints was that four members of the panel were appointed by Judge Shunji Yanai, a former Japanese ambassador to the United States, and a lawyer who was the president of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in 2013 when the Philippines started the case.

Normally in a case that is to be heard by a five-member panel, each side chooses two members and the sea tribunal chooses one, experts on the treaty said.

In the South China Sea case, the Philippines appointed one judge from Germany.

In an effort to not have a disproportionate number of members appointed by its side, the Philippines asked Mr. Yensai to appoint the remaining four, said Markus Gehring, a law-of-the-sea expert and lecturer in law at the University of Cambridge.

Mr. Liu cast aspersions on Mr. Yanai saying he was an ally of the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, a conservative politician whom the Chinese government often criticize. “This tribunal is totally rigged by him,” Mr. Liu said.

The deputy foreign minister also attacked the tribunal over the fees for their services, which had been paid by the Philippines. “They make money, who owns them? Who are paying them? Philippines or another country?”

In both commercial and international arbitration cases, including law of the sea matters, it was normal practice for the two sides to pay for the fees of the arbitrators, and other expenses such as court reporters, and information technology, Mr. Gehring said.

China declined to pay its costs for the case, so the Philippines did, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which administered the case between the Philippines and China, noted on its website.

“The Permanent Court of Arbitration’s bills to the parties had to be paid,” said Paul S. Reichler, the chief counsel for the Philippines. “Because China ignored them, the Philippines had no choice but to pay China’s share as well. That is what happens when one of the parties refuses to pay its share, and the other party wants the arbitration to proceed.”

He called the five jurists among the “most honorable and distinguished” in the world.

“The suggestion that these five arbitrators ruled in the Philippines’ favor because they knew that the Philippines paid the costs — to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, not to them personally — is vicious and mendacious.”

Yufan Huang contributed research

@ The New York Times