If the Philippines leader refuses to be a lap dog, then what will the next one do? The next one could get closer to China or get closer to the USA, maybe so close that they could have the tail wag the dog into a USA & China war. However, that seems too unlikely now because of this independent foreign policy taken by Duterte Harry, makes it almost impossible for the next Philippines leader to be backed fully by the USA. That's why those CIA rumours that they gonna get digong always surface periodically.The other thing is, as long as the China Philippines relations develop smoothly, increasing trade, government contacts and cooperation - as long as the relationship gets bigger, the South China Sea dispute gets smaller. So one would expect there is quite a bit of motivation between China and Philippines to work together on stuff they can agree on and wish to develop further.
