Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The "final award" of the South China Sea arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines will be issued Tuesday. However, public opinion has been shrugging off the arbitration case and many experts and scholars in international law from the West and the East have expressed grave concerns about its partiality and the power wrangle among the world's major countries.

Nonetheless, some nations have become restless about the current landscape and even started to threaten other countries and organizations to compel them to support the final award upon its release. Japan is just one of these nations.

On June 20, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh that more than a month ago the ambassador of a country outside the ASEAN region had tried to lobby Cambodia and other ASEAN countries to support the arbitral tribunal's upcoming decision over the Sea China Sea. The prime minister said that the tribunal's upcoming decision is "politically motivated" and Cambodia will not support the decision.

The Cambodian government and the ruling Cambodian People's Party have expressed on many occasions that they will not support the tribunal's decision, dealing a vigorous counterblow against Tokyo's pressure.

Despite Japan's failure in its attempt, it seems that Tokyo has been deeply interfering in the South China Sea arbitration. If we say the US is the backstage manipulator of the case, then we can contend that Japan is standing at its forefront. But their intervention proves that the arbitration is nothing but a political farce.

Japan is involved in the arbitration case directly through Shunji Yanai, not only a member of the tribunal but also former vice minister for Japan's Foreign Affairs. Moreover, he has been keenly promoting the US-Japan alliance.

In 2001 when he was appointed as ambassador to Washington, Yanai had crafted all the rationales and omissions needed to dispatch the Ground Self-Defense Force to Iraq in the Second Gulf War. In 2005, he became a judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). He continued playing a role in connecting Washington and Tokyo and inciting the Japanese government to break away from the constitution.

But despite his actions, he was elected president of the ITLOS in 2011. Hence there was no doubt that in 2013 he became an ideal candidate for the arbitral tribunal in the South China Sea case. Since then, he has been acting as the pawn of the US and Japan to press Beijing in international public opinion and deny its claims in the South China Sea.

The second means Tokyo adopts to intervene in the South China Sea arbitration is via its official development assistance and other financial aid.

Since 1977 when then Japanese prime minister Takeo Fukuda proposed the Fukuda Doctrine, Japan has been engaged in Southeast Asian affairs. It has political, economic and military influence in the region, which it wields like a blade.

Tokyo always attaches "political conditions" when offering foreign aid. To counterbalance Beijing's recent public opinion campaign with regard to the South China Sea arbitration, it views Southeast Asia as a key force.

But Southeast Asian nations hold different stances on the South China Sea issue and it is difficult for them to play a pivotal part in this perennial dispute, which, however, failed to stop Japan from giving up on lobbying them to support the upcoming final award. Now Cambodia and some other nations have clarified their position, indicating that Japan's lack of respect of their positions on the South China Sea will only backfire.

Tokyo has its national interests in the South China Sea and closely follows Washington's steps in this regard, with an aim to consolidate their alliance.

It has interfered in the arbitration case at an unexpected speed.

As the final award will soon be issued, US State Department Spokeswoman Anna Richey-Allen underlined the importance of "using international legal mechanisms such as arbitration" on June 29. The Japanese also jumped the gun to ask Southeast Asian countries to support the award.

We cannot count on the US or Japan to settle this political farce. A concerted effort by China and the Philippines will be key to the intractable issue as well as for a soft landing of their bilateral relations.

The author is a research fellow with the Charhar Institute and the College of ASEAN Studies at Guangxi University for Nationalities. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn Follow us on Twitter @GTopinion