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It's not like there's a local island population that could object to the occupation, so control effectively belongs to whoever establishes a permanent presence first. It's obviously not an ideal state of affairs, but it also doesn't indicate a propensity of the current Chinese government to invade populated territory any more than for the other countries.
> when the other claims are just as illegitimate
This is untrue, re: «On 12 July 2016, an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled that China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" within its nine-dash line in a case brought by the Philippines»
> All of these countries have overlapping
This is massively disingenuous, because only China is putting military bases next to other countries and then chasing off their fishermen. Locate Mischief Reef on a map, and then tell me China isn’t annexing Phillipine territory with a straight face.
> China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" within its nine-dash line in a case brought by the Philippines
The tribunal did not find that the Philippines had such a legal basis either. Mischief Reef is not in the Philippines' territorial waters, which only extend 12 nautical miles. It is within their exclusive economic zone, which means that China would not be allowed to e.g. drill for oil. But the surface is international waters and no nation has the right to obstruct another's vessels there.
> only China is putting military bases next to other countries
Vietnam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namyit_Island
Yes it is, and China has put a military base there and is chasing out Filipino citizens.
Now there’s a straw man
> China does not respond to the normal stimulus / protest that democratic, human-rights based nations do.
I guess there was the brutality of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but Tiananmen is the exception in the history of Chinese protests, just like the Kent State Massacre was in the US.
If it is only an exception in Chinese history, why is it not being mentioned anywhere, let alone discussed? You still don't see the difference?
Most Chinese don't want to talk about it because it's considered a source of national shame. (Westerners often interpret that as them being afraid to talk, but that's not actually true.) They also believe the events are used for foreign propaganda which is not entirely untrue.
In Germany people have a completely different perspective on the Holocaust. It was horrible and a source of great national shame, but still, never forget. Blocking Wikipedia on Holocaust remembrance day would not happen in Germany.
Is the Hundred Flowers Campaign also an exception? And the millions of people who were killed during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution? Or the millions of people who have been brainwashed for religious reasons in Xinjiang? Or the thousands of journalists, authors and publishers who have been jailed, sometimes "disappeared", for texts critical of the CCP just during the last two decades?