China has sharply criticised a United States-led group of countries for publicly marking the 10th anniversary of the international arbitration ruling on the South China Sea, an award Beijing has long rejected.

The rebuke, reported by the South China Morning Post, targets a coalition of states led by Washington that chose to commemorate the landmark decision issued a decade ago by an arbitral tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The tribunal's ruling arose from a case brought by the Philippines against China over maritime claims and conduct in the South China Sea. The award rejected the legal basis for China's expansive claims in the disputed waters. Beijing refused to participate in the proceedings and has consistently refused to accept or recognise the decision, insisting the tribunal lacked jurisdiction and that the matter concerns territorial questions outside its scope.

According to the report, Chinese officials and state media condemned the anniversary statements issued by the US-led coalition, characterising the commemorations as unwarranted interference in regional affairs. Beijing maintains that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through direct negotiation between the parties directly concerned, without outside involvement.

For China, the tribunal's award carries no binding force. Chinese authorities have repeatedly described the ruling as null and void from the outset and have accused outside powers of using it as a pretext to pressure Beijing and to justify a sustained military and diplomatic presence in a region China regards as its immediate neighbourhood.

The coalition marking the anniversary takes the opposite view. The United States and its partners treat the 2016 award as a final and legally significant determination of the parties' rights and entitlements under UNCLOS. Their commemorative statements reaffirm support for the rules-based maritime order and for the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international law, including the convention's dispute-settlement mechanisms.

The exchange of rhetoric underscores the fault line that the ruling has come to represent in the decade since it was issued. One side sees a definitive legal settlement that must be respected. The other sees an invalid proceeding whose conclusions it never accepted. Neither position has moved.

The war of words arrives at a moment of persistent friction in the South China Sea. The waterway remains one of the world's most consequential maritime corridors, and competing claims continue to generate confrontations between vessels and aircraft of the states involved, as well as between China and outside navies operating in the area.

Diplomats and analysts watching the anniversary exchanges note that the tribunal's decision did not, by itself, alter behaviour on the water. China has continued to build up and militarise outposts in the disputed waters, while the Philippines and other claimant states have continued to protest and to lean on the ruling as legal support for their positions. The United States has repeatedly invoked the award in statements on freedom of navigation and the rule of law at sea.

For practitioners of international law, the episode is a reminder of the limits and the endurance of arbitral authority. The award stands as a matter of legal record. Its practical enforcement depends entirely on the willingness of states to invoke it, comply with it, or pressure others to do so. A decade on, the ruling functions less as a settled disposition than as a rallying point — cited by one camp, repudiated by the other.

The latest Chinese criticism of the US-led commemorations signals that the anniversary will not pass as a quiet milestone. Instead, it has become another arena in which the competing narratives over the South China Sea's legal status are contested, with each side restating positions that have hardened over the past ten years.

No new legal proceedings accompany the anniversary statements. The tribunal that issued the ruling dissolved after delivering its award, and UNCLOS provides no appeal from its decisions. The dispute now plays out almost entirely through diplomacy, public statements, and the day-to-day contest for position in the waters the ruling once sought to bring under legal order.