By Trefor Moss
Since the midsummer slump in its relations with the Philippines and Vietnam, China has been taking diplomatic steps to repair the damage. Despite nationalistic calls for China to “think ahead and strike first” at Philippine and Vietnamese forces, as the reliably demagogic Global Times tub-thumped back in September, Beijing has been charting a much wiser course. After agreeing a new set of guidelines for implementing the declaration of conduct (DOC) in the South China Sea with ASEAN in July, with a formalized code of conduct still to come, China hosted Philippine President Benigno Aquino for fence-mending talks in early September, and received Vietnamese Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong a month later.
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