evidence: To date, the impact of PRC militarization is most acutely felt in the South China Sea, where the PRC built several bases despite President Xiâs unambiguous promise in 2015 to not militarize the Spratly Islands.Â Beijing now uses those locations to expand its intimidation and coercion of many Southeast Asian coastal states and undermine their efforts to exercise their sovereign rights under international law. [...] Beijingâs claims to offshore resources across much of the South China Sea areâ¯widely denounced as unlawful.â¯ Beijing uses intimidation to undermine the sovereign rights of Southeast Asian coastal states in the South China Sea, bully them out of offshore resources, threaten them out of shipping lanes, assert unilateral dominion, and deprive fishermen of access to their livelihoods.Â Beijing seeks to replace international law with âmight makes right.âÂ The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region.Â Beijing has offered no coherent legal basis for its âNine-Dashed Lineâ claim in the South China Sea, since formally announcing it in 2009.Â In a unanimous decision on July 12, 2016, an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Conventionâto which the PRC is a State Partyârejected much of the PRCâs South China Sea maritime claims as having no basis in international law.