Rodrigo Duterte and Xi Jinping emerged from their latest bilateral talks with no substantial or new development to show for it with regard to the testy relationship between the Philippines and China. Beijing will still not recognize an arbitral court ruling giving Manila exclusive economic rights to certain portions of the South China Sea. And both countries vowed not to engage in provocative acts, which essentially bring both back to square one.
If anything positive can be squeezed out of the fruitless exercise, it is that it is always good when two leaders talk face-to-face. A lot of ambiguities and misread signals can be eliminated thus. Also, when two leaders meet, talk, and shake hands, it is always followed by a period of relative peace and calm.
But things are never going to go back to normal for the Philippines and China. Things have been said and done that slammed the door on any real return to pre-South China Sea tensions relations. One can only take stock of the status quo and one's current position vis-a-vis the other, but always with a mind to the future, immediate or otherwise.
In this regard, here is how we stack up against China militarily, armed conflict with our giant neighbor always being just a miscalculation away or a provocation simply gone too far. All the figures are from globalfirepower.com and therefore not official. Figures pertaining to other factors that affect armed conflict such as economic strength and natural resources are not included.
In personnel strength, China has a standing army of 2,183,000 with 510,000 in reserve. The Philippines has a standing army of 125,000 with 180,000 in reserve. Taking active soldiers and reservists together and stripped of any armaments, that is almost nine bare-armed Chinese soldiers for every Filipino soldier.
China's navy has one carrier, the Philippines has none. China has 76 submarines, the Philippines none. China has 33 destroyers, the Philippines none. China has 52 frigates, the Philippines three. China has 42 corvettes, the Philippines 10. China has 192 patrol boats, the Philippines has 39. China has 33 mine layers, the Philippines none.
China's air force has 1,222 fighter aircraft, the Philippines none. China has 1,564 attack aircraft, the Philippines has 20. China has 1,004 helicopters, the Philippines has 97. China has 281 attack helicopters, the Philippines has none. China has 193 transport planes, the Philippines has 22. China has 368 trainer aircraft, the Philippines 24.
China's infantry has 13,050 tanks, the Philippines has 18. China has 40,000 armored fighting vehicles, the Philippines 530. In self-propelled artillery China has 4,000 while the Philippines has none. In towed artillery China has 6,246 while the Philippines has 286. China has 2,050 rocket projectors, the Philippines none. And, of course, China has an undisclosed number of nuclear weapons while the Philippines has nothing to disclose.