But the Philippine president is fairly competent and fairly honest. All China has to do is wait a year or 2 for the opposition to get back in here in the Philippines, and then bribe them. The left here got the Americans to close their bases, but now the question if the left will be bribed to keep the USA out... who do they hate more? The average Filipino hates the Chinese a lot more than Americans, because so many have relatives in the US.
And trade sanctions, even if they only included the US, Japan and Korea, would destroy the Chinese economy.
Also a good number of their relatives have American blood lines. We did our best to modify their national gene pool from 1898 to 1992.
PIng