Analyzes of disputes in the East Sea often use the term legal war to describe the very different activities of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United States, obscuring differences normative differences between the policies of these countries. China's legal warfare strategy in the South China Sea is aimed at enforcing its baseless claims, while recent legal actions by Southeast Asian claimant states are aimed at finding how to clarify these claims and encourage dispute resolution based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - UNCLOS. Instead of pushing for a comprehensive rewrite of maritime law, China tries to advance specific claims based on history. After decades of disputes in the East Sea, China has not seen any other views on maritime law other than its specific claims. Traditional legal processes, especially the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling on the East Sea, have helped clarify applicable law, thereby removing all legal cover for the enforcement of China's claims in the East Sea. International support for China's maritime claims in the East Sea outside the areas of application under UNCLOS is waning, while support is evident for other substantive findings in the Arbitral Tribunal's ruling is increasing. China has effectively changed the status quo through land reclamation and the construction of outposts on a number of features in the South China Sea, but it has not succeeded in creating an unfounded belief that the enforcement of its China's baseless policy is almost legal.