As long as Manila continues to seek peaceful solutions to its territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, the prospects for bilateral cooperation are promising, as Beijing and Manila have pledged to deepen their reciprocal cooperation in various fields as the ice between them begun to thaw.

The thawing of China-Philippine ties not only helps restore healthy relations between the two neighbors but also contributes to building peace and stability in the South China Sea, in which the US too has claimed a stake.

However, the US should not lament the possible loss of a devoted ally as its military alliance system no longer conforms to the trend of our times. Forged after the World War II and prevailing through the Cold War era, the US global military alliances bear such features as inequality and exclusiveness, and are now outdated.

In recent years, NATO, the biggest military ally of the US, has disagreed with the US over global and regional security issues. The US military alliance with Saudi Arabia and Turkey is obviously in trouble now. Skepticism and criticism over the military alliances within and outside the US allies also grow day by day.

Under such a backdrop, the sentiments expressed by Duterte bring to the fore such skepticism and could prompt other US allies to rethink their dependent relations with the US in the light of the changing global political and security conditions.

The US has relied on its global military alliance with more than 30 countries to bolster its global leadership and play the role of a world policeman.when international cooperation under an equal footing is gathering greater consensus in the world arena, the weakening of US alliance system will only prove to be a natural process.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific.

jasmine@chinadailyhk.com