Chinese people's reactions to the U.N arbitration decision

Hello, 

Thanks for reading this article. 

I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself initially. I have lived in China for 4 years and in this weird and wonderful country, I have learnt a lot about Chinese culture, traditions, beliefs and who Chinese people are. By working here, I have learnt many interesting things and I lead a very free and comfortable life. 

What I want to talk about is the tide of nationalist pride which has swept the nation yesterday and today since the ruling from the U.N. Firstly, there are many similarities to other issues about islands and maritime borders that occurred nearly two years ago with Japan. 

At that time, China believes they have the rights to an island called "Diaoyu Islands" and Japan currently control the same island called "Senkaku Islands". Tensions ran high during some minor clashes over these islands between the two Asian Giants, which lead to Chinese people flooding onto the streets and attacking local Japanese businesses, products, services, basically anything Japanese. 

Funnily enough, the businesses, cars, products and services that were destroyed or boycotted by the Chinese, impacted other Chinese people rather than any Japanese. Of course, some Japanese were affected during this time, but largely Chinese people bore the brunt of it. Japanese restaurants owned by Chinese people were burnt, smashed or damaged. Japanese made cars, which were probably made in China, and driven by Chinese people, were similarly affected. Soon enough, emotions cooled and life went back to normal, yet history seems like it may repeat itself. Now the anger and frustration will be directed towards the Philippines and even more so, the U.S.A. 

Why the U.S.A you may ask, this wasn't because of them, and the U.N meeting was actually held in the Netherlands, not the U.N Building in the U.S. So why? Well, people here naturally think America is to blame and they want to dictate policy in Asia. This has all lead to hysteria not only from the State-controlled media but also from the people. 

Which all leads me to yesterday's news regarding China's '9 dash line' and the U.N's arbitration decision. The decision went massively against China, which stated that " China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, constructing artificial islands and failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone. " It later went on to say that " The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line". 

So what impact has it had here, in China?

Well...I'll show you some of the social media posts that people have posted in the past 24 hours. It's quite interesting to see. 

Then some videos of Chinese military were displayed....

And were later told to be taken down by supposed 'Military Officials' as it showed their military secrets.

Later, pictures of American navy vessels shown on a map were displayed.

And then some interesting videos of Obama were shared...Sorry I don't have the video, just screenshots, but you'll get the idea.

Poor Obama.

So that's it. National pride is quite strong at the moment and people want to protect their country, and quite rightly so. But when it's based on half-truths and misinformation, it makes you wonder.

I look forward to reading your comments. I hope you liked this. Hopefully I'll bring you more insights into China.

Thanks and have a good day!