This article analyzes the jurisprudence of the historical rights and regime of the islands provided in the Award of the South China Sea Arbitration in order to observe how China influences the practices and interpretation of law of the sea through legal, diplomatic and military actions. The main research findings of the article are: (1)Since the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) did not comprehensively take other legal sources into its historical rights interpretation account, that may leave some room for China to continue enforcing exclusive historical or fishing rights. (2)Since the PCA expects to partly solve the conflict in the South China Sea by narrowly interpreting the elements of the regime of islands, that may, to the contrary, even motivate China to counter threats from U.S. military action by strengthening its land reclamation in the Spratly Islands. (3)China may try to conclude a binding conflict management mechanism with weak legal obligations so as to exclude other higher applic able legal obligations in the future.