It is certain that China will reject a ruling by the UN Arbitration Court brought by the Philippines over who owns the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, wrote Richard Bitzinger, a senior fellow and coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at RSIS at NTU. He stressed that the issue of Chinese hegemony in the South China Sea is less and less about economics and increasingly about militarisation as the area is becoming a key defensive zone for China. It also raises the likelihood that the South China Sea will become a flashpoint for escalating conflict as it becomes too important for Beijing to lose.