Vietnam is a coastal state and a disputing party in the South China Sea (SCS), which is called the East Sea in Vietnam due to its location vis-à-vis its mainland. Within the framework of this chapter, these two terms are used interchangeably. There, Vietnam claims sovereignty over the land features in the Paracels and Spratlys, and over a suite of maritime zones as stipulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which overlap wholly and partly with those of its neighbours. The country has been well-known as one of the claimants which has stood firmly in a series of stand-offs with its giant neighbour, China. It is a big puzzle for many why Hanoi would risk antagonizing Beijing, its most important neighbour, for a bunch of remote, barren and tiny features in the middle of the sea and for the waters off its coast. This chapter builds on the existing literature of Vietnam's maritime activities and its statecraft to map and identify the importance of the East Sea in the Vietnamese perspective throughout the course of history. It should be noted that the SCS and the offshore islets have not only been incorporated into Vietnam's political geography since at least the 17th century but also into its strategic thinking. In other words, the sea and islands serve as a layer of defence that increases the country's strategic depth.

Lack of strategic depth and insecurity

Vietnam's strategic thinking is conditioned by history and geography. The combination of the asymmetry of power and geographical proximity created a permanent concern among Vietnamese political elites about the Northern threat. History textbooks remind schoolchildren about the bitter experience of King An Du’o’ng Vu’o’ng in trusting Chinese General Zhao Tuo (magistrate of Nanhai Province), which resulted in the fall of the Âu Lạc Dynasty in 179BCE and a longue durée of Chinese suzerainty. Consequently, such a dark time under the Chinese yoke, or “a millennium of grievance,” created a deep sense of insecurity and served as an undying reminder of the danger from the North.

Geographically speaking, Vietnam's most dominant feature is the lack of strategic depth. The concept broadly refers to the distance between the frontline and the country's core areas, including the capital and main industrial cities.

Introduction

The South China Sea (SCS) has been one of the sources of instability in East Asian security for decades. Territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction over islands and reefs in the SCS are contested among the littoral countries including China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei, occasionally causing tensions and even military conflicts between the competing nations. In particular, China provoked serious confrontations by its actions for expanding control of the SCS through exercise of, and/or intimidation by, military force, as Joshua Hastey and Scott N. Romaniuk, and Romaniuk and Tobias Burgers explore in their conceptual chapters (Chapter 1 and 2). In 1974, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China attacked the South Vietnamese army stationing in the Paracel Islands, resulting in China's full control of the islands. China occupied six reefs and rocks in the Spratly Islands by exercising military force against the Vietnamese navy in 1988. In what Ian J. Storey refers to as a “creeping assertiveness,” China put the Mischief Reef under its control, replacing that of the Philippines, through mobilizing warships of the PLA Navy (PLAN) around the reef in 1995.

In the late 1990s, China seemed to cease aggressive actions to expand occupation in the SCS and started to take accommodating behaviours towards the Southeast Asian nations. In 2002, China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the SCS, which declares parties should “resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force.” The DOC gave the regional countries some expectation that Beijing would pursue benign policies, leading to lower tension in the SCS. However, China soon got back to normal to show assertive postures against the competing claimants. In 2008, Chinese patrol vessels belonging to maritime law enforcement agencies started patrol missions on a regular basis in the SCS, and repeatedly obstructed navigation of foreign fishing boats and surveillance vessels. In 2012, Chinese patrol vessels confronted the Philippines’ Coast Guard ships around the Scarborough Shoal and finally established control of the shoal. China's renewed assertive policies raised serious regional concerns about stability in the SCS.

China also directed assertive behaviour against the United States (US) in the SCS. Two Chinese “trawlers,” supported by patrol vessels and a reconnaissance ship of the PLAN, harassed the USS Impeccable operating off the coast of Hainan Island in 2009.

Introduction

This chapter examines the South Korean perspective on the South China Sea (SCS). There are various entrenched disagreements between surrounding states, which dispute economic rights and legal jurisdiction, and the SCS is also the principal theatre in which the great-power games between China and the US are played out. The problems of the SCS have a wider destabilizing effect upon East Asian maritime security, and this poses strategic issues for other regional states, such as South Korea; the importance of the SCS as a trade route means that there are also global economic ramifications.

As a responsible stakeholder, South Korea is concerned that the peace and good order of the region are threatened by the intractable attitudes of the parties involved, which seem committed to irreconcilable legal and political stances, and show little interest in resolving their differences through negotiation. On the contrary, there is an ongoing process of escalation: smaller countries are building up their navies and maritime law forces, China is also expanding its capabilities, including by creating and militarizing artificial islands in the SCS, and the US is also behaving provocatively.

As a regional middle power, South Korea is advocating balanced and constructive policies, without prejudice to any country, and is seeking to mitigate tensions and de-escalate disputes, so that regional maritime security can be restored and the threat of serious physical conflicts can be reduced.

Why is a strategic perspective needed?

Underlying every issue in the SCS today is the challenge to the existing order represented by the expanding power of China, which threatens the US regional hegemony and perhaps its global dominance. In response, the US has taken some provocative steps, including naval transits of the Taiwan Strait and the so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the SCS. This action-reaction cycle between China and the US has also prompted a general urge toward naval modernization by regional states.

Fortunately, there are no direct military confrontations occurring in the SCS, and in contrast to the ongoing wars of the Middle East, there are no refugees. The SCS situation is best characterized as a “grey zone” conflict or as “hybrid competition” between the parties involved.

Introduction

Russia's behaviour in the South China Sea (SCS) dispute is a puzzling case for international relations scholars. On the surface, Russia's official approach is to persuade the rival claimants and the broader international community that Russia is an extra-regional player that has no direct stakes in the SCS and, therefore, prefers not to be involved. However, behind the façade of disengagement are large-scale energy and arms deals with the major disputants. Most puzzling are Russia's relations with China and Vietnam – the two major rival parties in the SCS and, simultaneously, Russia's closest and most important Asian partners.

Most of the existing assessments interpret Russia-China-Vietnam relations in zero-sum terms. Thus, the strengthening of the Russia-Vietnam partnership is presented as a means for Russia to contain or balance the alleged Chinese threat. According to this narrative, Russia worries about overdependence upon an increasingly influential China and tries to arm or conclude economic deals with Vietnam and other actual or potential adversaries of China in the SCS and in Asia more broadly. The other side of such an interpretation is based on the evidence of a growing military entente between China and Russia and pictures Russia as siding with China at the cost of relations with other regional partners, including Vietnam, particularly after the Ukraine Crisis. According to this story, as a China-Russia strategic alignment grows, Russia is likely to snub those of its partners who are at odds with China.

These interpretations are incomplete. First, they make the coexistence of the Russia-China and Russia-Vietnam strategic partnerships a sheer paradox. However, both relationships have existed and even progressed for quite some time. Second, although Russia does try to enhance cooperation with Vietnam and other regional states, its cooperation with China continues to grow, and there is no evidence of Russia intentionally trying to slow it down. Third, the Russia-Vietnam partnership should not be underestimated, because it has been growing despite and independently of Russia-China relations. In summary, cooperating with both China and its rival claimants characterizes Russia's policies in the SCS.

This chapter argues that to untangle this situation, one must “zoom out” to see the logic of both international systemic and non-systemic (regional and domestic) levels of great-power behaviour.

Introduction

The South China Sea (SCS) is at the strategic crossroads connecting Northeast and Southeast Asia on one hand and the Pacific and the Indian Ocean on the other. China is one of the countries bordering the SCS. China also claims sovereignty over four archipelagos in the SCS, including the Spratlys and Paracels (which China refers to as the Nansha and Xisha Islands respectively). Some of the claims are currently contested to different extents by other coastal states of the SCS.

According to official statistics from China, a total of 42 Spratly features have been successively occupied by other countries. In January 1974, as the result of a military clash at sea, China gained effective control over the entirety of the Paracels by defeating South Vietnamese troops stationed on some of the features. In March 1988, China again took control of six features of the Spratlys after a naval conflict with Vietnam. In 1994, China built facilities on Mischief Reef (Meiji Jiao) of the Spratlys, followed by protests from the Philippines.

With regard to China's maritime rights and jurisdiction in the SCS, China claims that, under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it is entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf in this area, where China also claims historical rights. China's maritime claims in the SCS also overlap with those of other coastal states.

China's holistic approach to national security

A study of China's official statements reveals that China's perceptions of its security interests in the SCS are multi-faceted. Since 2014, the Chinese leadership has adopted a holistic approach toward its national security, for which China will establish a national security team to safeguard its political and social system, its territory, military, economy, culture, scientific, and technological development, environment, natural resources, and nuclear programmes.

As a result, as far as China is concerned, the term “security” might not be understood in its narrow sense, but rather be connected with interests in other fields. For example, China's security interests in the SCS may have a close connection with its territorial and maritime claims in this area.

Introduction

The United States (US) has been a presence in East Asia since the early part of the 19th century. Over the decades that role grew, until, by 1945, Washington found itself the dominant power in the region. Since that time, regional powers have risen and fallen, but the US remains a critical player in the region. This chapter focuses on the importance of the South China Sea (SCS) to the US, and the evolution of its attitudes and actions toward the region. America's intentions in the SCS have changed little since the 19th century. Washington seeks to keep the peace, keep trade flowing through the region, prevent the rise of a dominant power in the region, and preserve its own freedom of action in the region, primarily through ensuring Freedom of the Seas. The rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 1948 has proven to be the primary challenge to US objectives. Since 1948, Beijing has sought to expand its power and influence in any way that it could. With the massive growth of its economy, particularly since the 1980s, the PRC has become increasingly ambitious and belligerent in its actions in the SCS. Over that same period, US responses have become increasingly strident. This chapter will discuss US efforts in the region, focusing on the history of US involvement and the changing nature of US positions and responses to events in the region, particularly during the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The US in the South China Sea up to 1945

American activity in the Western Pacific and the SCS began shortly after the founding of the Republic. As early as 1784, the first American merchant ship, the SS Empress of China, arrived in the region. Growing trade with China eventually drove the US in its westward expansion across the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century, culminating with the acquisition of the Philippines and other islands following the successful war with Spain in 1898.

But the acquisition of the Philippines was far from the first US interaction with the SCS area.

Introduction

Some years have passed since the South China Sea (SCS) Arbitral Tribunal Award was issued in 2016. The atmosphere now is very different from the days when the region had been plagued by occasional maritime skirmishes and standoffs. Regional leaders are busy talking about economic integration and measures to boost inter-state and intra-regional trade exchanges, with a language characterized by development, stability, and common destiny. Yet, the contention of freedom of navigation and shadows of great-power wrestling have stirred up regional waters, sending a palpable reminder that the danger of inadvertent conflicts is that they may easily lapse into a serious, whole-scale confrontation. This has given the SCS issue an opportune redefinition, particularly in a context of seeing the irrepressible tensions escalating between China and the US. That intensification of the SCS issue can be deemed a process integral to China's development, and to the entailed tensions between China as a rising power and the US as an existential extra-regional power. In other words, the SCS issue, in and of itself, should always be considered in a broader context, seeing the competition of agendasetting power between China and the US. Therefore, territorial disputes in the maritime forefront are a prelude to this great-power wrestling in the macro aspect, and a reflection of the dual dilemma encountering regional claimants and countries in a micro sense. It is from this regionalizationregionalism perspective that how Singapore currently views the SCS issue should be evaluated.

This chapter addresses the SCS issue in the context of consistently advancing regional integration in Southeast Asia. In particular, Singapore's efforts and postures in steering the simmering SCS issue through this advancing regional integration under the shadow of intensifying great-power wrestling and regional terrorist attacks will be studied. In this vein, this chapter intends to view the SCS issue as an integral part of the reconfiguration of a transnational order in Southeast Asia, discussions of which can only be comprehensive when various aspects are factored into the deliberation. Up to the present day, it is fair to argue that this transnational order (and re-ordering) is mainly economic-oriented, while regionalization has been a major push force.

Regional integration in Southeast Asia: the promising economic aspect

The South China Sea (SCS) dispute is regarded as the most complex and challenging ocean-related regional conflict in East Asia. The security in the SCS is a concern for both the regional countries (for example, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei) and extra-regional countries (for example, the United States (US), Russia, Australia, India, and Japan), among others, due to their strategic and economic interests in this region. While many contend that competition and disputes over the region are principally concerned with its natural resources, others argue that the essence of the dispute is oriented toward China's expanding power and challenge to the status quo position of the US and its hegemonic power, though China has moved against other states in the region to enhance its own strategic position overall, amplifying existing tensions over the region's riches and bring states closer to conflict. China, often characterized as a revisionist power, however, is not the only state to project its intentions to defend its interests in the region. Among other states, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam also exhibit provocative pursuits and competing interests, potentially imperilling prospects for peace and dispute resolution as well as raising concerns about the increase of military confrontation between states.

State policies, driven in part by revisionist behaviour, have been formulated and implemented not only to support major geographic claims and politicomilitary positions but also to contain the growing military and economic power – notably that of China – and interests of competing states in the region. The US, with its self-claimed “Pivot to Asia” in 2010 and its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy” efforts to curb the economic and military interests of China and others, has contributed to the militarization of the SCS. China, for its part, has constructed military facilities on several features in the SCS. The US and other outside actors largely situate their concerns regarding the SCS in terms of preserving freedom of navigation (FON). This volume engages the geostrategic motivations, interests, and reactive measures of states concerning the SCS, and aims to present the most comprehensive and elucidating volume on states’ policies and interests in the SCS and their system impact on the security architecture of the region.

Introduction

Despite being the world's fifth largest economy when measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), having the sixth largest military budget, being a nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC), and member of, inter alia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the G7, the United Kingdom (UK) is facing a period of deep uncertainty. This uncertainty is in part borne out of “Brexit,” but equally significantly is borne out of a requirement, amid decreasing economic and military power, to redefine its role in the world and adapt to the changing geopolitical, economic and military landscape – a landscape that potentially has Asia as its fulcrum and Southeast Asia at its heart.

The UK economy is dominated by the service sector that accounts for 80 per cent of GDP and as such the UK is heavily reliant on trade to satisfy the needs of its citizens and businesses. This trade is in part facilitated by the UK's “Red Ensign” merchant navy fleet, which is the tenth largest in the world, and the Royal Navy, which is widely considered to be one of the top five most powerful navies, yet both had been in decline until recently, numerically in terms of ship numbers and also in terms of influence. This decline is not without consequence, most acutely in respect of the Royal Navy's ability to deploy globally and simultaneously to various areas of operation. This has been thrown into sharp relief by events in the summer of 2019, in which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized a British-flagged merchant vessel in the Arabian Gulf in retaliation for the Royal Marines detaining Iran's oil tanker Grace 1 in Gibraltar on suspicion of violating European Union (EU) sanctions. Should the UK's engagement in South China Sea (SCS) be seen in the same vein of defending international rules and norms? At the same time, emerging threats in multiple maritime theatres are further exposing the Royal Navy's resource constraints.

The UK has a global trading and diplomatic presence with 134 embassies or consulates worldwide including all the states with maritime claims in the SCS, yet its military deployments in the SCS and diplomatic messaging, specifically with respect to Hong Kong, have met with significant opprobrium from the PRC (China) and strongly worded statements “not to interfere.”

This volume has provided a broad assessment by experts of the complex political and security challenges that arise from highly divergent national views on the South China Sea (SCS). But it is evident that there is no consensus among the claimant states regarding the future of the SCS, nor among external stakeholders. This volume will most certainly not be the last word on a dispute that has endured decades, and that is likely to stretch deep into the 21st century without a comprehensive settlement or resolution.

From the defeat of the Empire of Japan by the United States (US) and its wartime allies in 1945 until the 1974 expulsion of Vietnamese armed forces from the Paracels, the SCS was a peripheral international issue in a world dominated by the security challenges of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. As noted by John Callahan in Chapter 12, the US Navy (USN) was largely unchallenged in the SCS waters, while China possessed only a modest coastal naval force.

The rise in Chinese economic power allowed the People's Republic of China (PRC) to devote funding to building a blue-water navy and, through massive dredging operations, to expand islets or to create islands from atolls or rocky outcrops of the sea, and to build on these features extensive naval, coast guard, and air force installations. However, as noted by Stein Tønnesson in the Foreword, none of the other SCS claimant states possess the means to compete successfully with China in terms of military capacity. Two external stakeholders – the US and Japan – have sufficient military resources to play a role in security issues related to the SCS, but only the US possesses the means to project sufficient power into the SCS and thus to contest PRC dominance.

Future status of the South China Sea

It is difficult to imagine the disputing claimant states achieving consensus on the competing legal claims in the foreseeable future. For the top Chinese leadership, the high profile accorded to China's efforts to solidify its SCS claims, and the personal involvement of the PRC's Xi Jinping in pushing those claims makes any backing-down on China's SCS policies unlikely. Furthermore, the very prominence of Chinese claims in the Chinese state media and in the PRC educational curriculum may serve as a brake to Chinese willingness to compromise on SCS issues.

For well over a hundred years, the South China Sea (SCS) has been a theatre for sovereignty disputes and naval rivalry. There are long-standing disputes among its surrounding states over sovereignty to islands, notably the Paracel and Spratly island groups, and Scarborough Shoal. Since the end of the Second World War, when states began to expand their territorial waters and demand rights to their continental shelf, there has also been conflict concerning overlapping claims to maritime zones. And naval power has shifted between China, Japan, Russia, European colonial empires, and the United States (US).

The stakes of the sovereignty disputes rose considerably in the 1970s, when oil discoveries were made, more islands were occupied or conquered, and the 3rd United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 3) adopted the principle of a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In its famously vague article 121.3, UNCLOS failed to resolve if very small islands, rocks or reefs can be used as basis for generating EEZ and continental shelf claims. In 2016, when an Arbitral Tribunal in the Philippines v. China case sought to resolve this issue, its ruling was not accepted by either Beijing or Taipei (Taiwan occupies the largest Spratly island, Yannhuei Song, Chapter 4).

Since UNCLOS 3 there is also a long-standing dispute over freedom of navigation, pitting some of the coastal states against the world's leading naval powers and small commercial states. While the latter group stands for a principle of total freedom for both civilian and military navigation in the EEZs of other states, seeing them as “international waters,” the former group reserves a right in their national legislation to inhibit military reconnaissance and exercises in their EEZs.

Only a few of the SCS's boundary disputes have been resolved, and there is a constant risk that incidents related to fisheries, oil exploration or naval and aerial operations will escalate and lead to confrontation. This risk has most likely increased with the proliferation of weapons systems – precision-guided missiles, aircraft, naval surface vessels, submarines, drones (see Scott N. Romaniuk and Tobias Burgers, Chapter 2) – and also the expansion of coast guard and fishing fleets.

Introduction

On January 26, 2015, in New Delhi, Barack Obama became the first US president to grace India's prestigious Republic Day parade as its chief guest of honour. A day earlier, President Obama and Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had issued a Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region. Noting that “a closer partnership between the United States (US) and India was indispensable to promoting peace, prosperity and stability” in the Indo-Pacific region, the two leaders, in their Joint Strategic Vision, affirmed:

The direct reference to the South China Sea (SCS) was among the first of its kind in a heads-of-government level communiqué featuring the US and India.

A year and a half later, in the course of an address to a joint session of the US Congress, Prime Minister Modi declared that India and the US had finally shed their “hesitations of history.” Peering ahead ambitiously, he averred that, “[a] strong India-U.S. partnership can anchor peace, prosperity and stability from Asia to Africa and from Indian Ocean to the Pacific. It can also help ensure security of the sea lanes of commerce and freedom of navigation on seas.” India and the US, in the Prime Minister's telling, shared congruent security interests across the vast Western Pacific and Indian Ocean maritime space writ large. In the years to come, New Delhi would grow into the role as a privileged partner and quasi-ally of Washington in the region, including in the critical, and contested, maritime cockpit of the Indo-Pacific – the SCS.

Barely two years later, on June 1, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was singing a different tune to the gathered audience of defence ministers, uniformed officers, and defence specialists at the prestigious Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

Introduction

The South China Sea (SCS) has long been one of the primary security interests of the People's Republic of China's (PRC, hereafter China). As early as 1958, through its “Declaration of the Government of the People's Republic of China on China's Territorial Sea,” China claimed parts of the SCS through the infamous nine-dash line. Throughout the ensuing decades, mostly minor hostilities occurred and China was unable to increase its power in the waters significantly. Instead, the SCS was something of a phoney, mainly diplomatic, conflict that only occasionally turned violent. The region featured conflicts based on limited escalation, though with significant pressure-potential for all actors engaged. However, over the past decade-and-a-half, foremost under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has sought to abandon Deng's mantle of “hiding its strength and biding its time.” China has, in the SCS at least, since 2009 when it declared its sovereignty over the seas, embarked on a tour de force, seeking political, economic, and military control over the strategic waterway. China has been sought to achieve these goals almost entirely through the application “salami-slicing.” Now widely applied by the Chinese military, paramilitary, and civil actors, salami-slicing is a “strategy that employs a series of incremental actions, none of which by itself is a casus belli, to gradually change the status quo in China's favor.” The SCS has remained a hotbed of this strategy and can be considered one, if not the core, area in which China has employed this approach the longest, most consistently, and efficiently. Through a strategy that appears to have been too successful, China has established a clear position of dominance and secured the upper hand vis-à-vis the other regional claimants, and has put non-regional actors, without a direct claim on the SCS, on the defensive.

Accordingly, the SCS has become one of the anchors, if not the leading anchor, of China's newly assertive foreign and security policy behaviour. The combination of its importance, its longitude – running well over a decade – and its success, makes the SCS an ideal case study of its foreign and security policy, notably under Xi. It offers clues and lessons on Chinese tactics, strategies, methods of operations, political goals, and reactions to what the ruling party in China has called “interference” from other actors.

Introduction

When President Rodrigo Roa Duterte visited China for the fifth time on August 28 to September 1, 2019, the United States (US) Navy had conducted more Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in 2019 than in any year during the same period, to challenge China's position in the South China Sea (SCS). Duterte's fifth visit to China provided him with opportunities to meet President Xi Jinping for the eighth time, amid increasing US– China rivalry in the SCS.

Duterte set a historic record for having the most meetings by a Filipino president with a Chinese counterpart during a mid-term in office, notwithstanding Manila's long-time security alliance with the US. Duterte's visits to China strongly demonstrated his ardent commitment to befriend and comprehensively engage with China on many pragmatic economic and political considerations, with a high expectation that this kind of appeasement could lead to the peaceful management of disputes in the SCS, a vital issue touching the core of Philippine national security interest.

One important outcome of Duterte's 2019 visit to China was the landmark implementation of the November 2018 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) entered into by the Philippines and China to facilitate their joint cooperation on the development of oil and gas resources in the SCS, particularly in areas being claimed by the Philippines called the West Philippine Sea (WPS), located mainly in the Spratlys. The Philippines and China agreed to move to the next step of joint cooperation by creating steering committees tasked to supervise the process.

With the idea of joint cooperation in the SCS, opposition forces in the Philippines strongly criticized Duterte for being pro-China. Duterte's decision to terminate the US– Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in February 2020 also convinced critics that his administration has become really pro-China. But Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who served as Philippine defence attaché to the United States, asserted that Duterte “is pro-Filipino, not pro-China” in his foreign and security policy.

A more nuanced analysis of Duterte's actions in the SCS, however, reveals his apparent pragmatism in dealing with China and the US. Though this pragmatism seemingly displays a pro-China position at the surface, it is arguably not changing the Philippines’ long-standing policy towards China, the US and the SCS dispute.