[Japan’s Latest Message To China: The South China Sea Is An Open Sea] International Business Times: Juscelino Colares, the Schott-van den Eynden Professor of Law, said that vast expanses of the South China Sea have been unlawfully claimed by the Chinese Communist regime following the illegal dredging and filling in of reefs and sandbanks to form artificial islands. “To date, the Chinese Communist regime has refused to comply with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which found neither ‘historical basis’ nor ‘historical title’ that would justify the exercise of Chinese sovereignty over these disputed waters.”