Contrary to what critics believe, President Duterte raised with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping the ruling of a UN-backed arbitral court, which trashed Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea. Xi’s response, Duterte said yesterday, was that if the Philippines forced the issue, China would go to war. Duterte said that when he met with Xi in Beijing last week, he stressed that the West Philippine Sea “is ours and we intend to drill oil there.”

Regalado, E., Macairan, E., Mendez, C., Rivera, D., & Laude, J. (2017, May 20). China warns Duterte on SCS: we’ll go to war. Philippine Star, pp. 1, 12.