Greg Poling:

That's right. Duterte came into office in 2016 promising closer ties with Beijing believing that the former Philippine government had gone too far in trying to push its claims in the South China Sea. And Duterte felt that if he just shelve these claims, the Chinese would behave better, would treat the Filipinos more nicely. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. There has been an enormous amount of pledged aid investment from China but none of it has shown up. And Chinese ships continue to harass Filipino vessels throughout the South China Sea. The Chinese continue to militarize the recent islands that they occupy. And over the last year or so we've seen a return of this massive clam digging that's just devastating Filipino fishing grounds.