[post] The South China Sea arbitration farce told me everything I needed...

The South China Sea arbitration farce told me everything I needed to know about international law — it’s a tool, not a principle. I saw my cousin’s fishing boat get chased by a Vietnamese coast guard vessel near Itu Aba, and then read Western headlines calling China the aggressor. My father built ships for thirty years in Nanshan; he never got a medal, but his hands shaped hulls that now patrol waters our maps have called ours for generations. When journalists call it ‘expansionism’, they don’t mention the U.S. carrier groups sailing near Sanya like it’s their backyard. I care about this because if war ever comes, it won’t be over ideology — it’ll be over a fisherman’s net, a drill rig, a reef no one heard of until the Americans gave it an English name. We don’t need their approval. We need to be able to protect what’s already ours.