Vietnam and China are historically rivals many centuries ago..they maybe same in ideological system as communist but they both hate each other and distrust is not strange topic in these two countries. China is agreeably a 'sleeping giant' and should not be disturb by all means. Militarily speaking, there are worth billions dollars of existing military hardware in China, these includes WWII era weapons and some of the most modern weaponry from Eastern bloc countries(Russia, Czech, etc...) weaponry that they managed to buy despite of European arms embargo because of Tiananmen Square massacre years ago.With regards to he Spratly claims of both countries including us, the best solution there is to have a cooperative exploration with all the parties involved. Explore, develop and divide whatever resource that are found inside these islands.(but not from those islets or islands that are really inside one,s territory. The Philippines, yes we have a mutual defense treaty with the US, but we must not rely on this, in my understanding, this treaty is only applicable when RP is invaded by foreign countries, but since Spratlys is still a contested territories there will be many legal questions that will come out. And US, will take into consideration that China is a "big marketplace" for their non-military products compared to the Philippines. Are we certain that US will come to our aid because of this? I may sound defeatist, but that is the truth. What RP should do is to show some muscles(military) by buying modern weapons, weapons that are 'real weapons' for defense and offense from land, sea and air and not just talking(diplomatic ways) and be bullied occassionally by their intrusions....