China and Vietnam have taken two distinctly different approaches in how they manage their territorial disputes with China. The Philippines is leaning into its alliance with the United States along with new security pacts with more than half a dozen other countries. Vietnam, in contrast, is going it alone.

Ironically, Vietnam is expanding its territorial presence in the disputed South China Sea through island reclamation, while the Philippines is merely trying to hold on to the territory it already claims. Yet, the face-off between Beijing and Manila is far more aggressive. 

Khang Vu, a visiting scholar at Boston College and a leading Vietnam analyst, said the key difference between the two is the Philippines' decision to bring an outside power (the U.S.) into the dispute. Khang joins Eric & Cobus to discuss what lessons the South China Sea confrontation offers other countries trying to manage equally contentious great power rivalries.

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