Damn. I completely forgot to check the media behind the article. Thanks for the heads up.
The only major territorial dispute China has is that with India. All the maritime territorial disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines are far less important and detrimental to relations. The most that happens in the SCS is a fishing boat being sunk or some fishermen being harassed. These incidents extremely rarely involve the military of any party. On the contrary, the incidents between China and India always involve the militaries of both nations, with the Galwan incident basically being a small battle. As such, I see no reason why China cannot sell weapons to the nations with whom it has territorial disputes. In the SCS alone, China exports arms to Indonesia, Malaysia, and even the Philippines.
