July 22, 2016

"The specifics of whether China can lay claim to the heavily-contested waters of the South China Sea may have been resolved by The Hague's ruling in favor of the Philippines, but business and trade relations between the two countries could still cloud the issue.

In a bid to distance himself from the Philippines ' previous administration, and avoid retaliation from Beijing for the ruling, the country's new president, Rodrigo Duterte, has indicated that he might be willing to make concessions on the South China Sea issue, explained Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, China was the Philippines' second largest trading partner and third largest export market in 2015."

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/south-china-sea-spat-wont-054030961.html