No country, at last count, has backed China's assertion that the West Philippine Sea is within its territory.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., during the recent handover of a Japanese radar system, disputed the intensified propaganda that the Philippines had allowed itself to be the US proxy in the regional conflict.

China claims "undisputed sovereignty" over the sea lanes where about $3.4 trillion worth of global trade passes yearly, making its nine-dash line claim of a historical boundary an international concern.

An international tribunal's 2016 decision said the claim violated the Philippines' exclusive economic zone as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China has called on US treaty ally the Philippines not to be a geopolitical pawn of Washington.

Instead, Teodoro said, nations have expressed support for the Philippines' right to the resources within its exclusive economic zone and other areas under its territorial jurisdiction.

The Defense chief countered a Chinese Foreign Ministry remark that "the recent events between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea are caused by the deliberate infringement on China's sovereignty and the provocations by the Philippines."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin had made the remark in response to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s characterization of the diplomatic relationship between the two nations as moving "in a poor direction."

Marcos had referred to rising tensions in the sea in recent weeks, including the alleged "swarming" by China's maritime militia and a round of collisions and near misses resulting from China's increasingly assertive blockades of supply missions to Ayungin Shoal where the Philippine ship BRP Sierra Madre is beached.

Despite the multinational concern about China's claim, only the Philippines has been pushing back, starting with the 2013 challenge before the arbitral court and the continuing delivery of supplies to the Sierra Madre despite blockades by Chinese vessels.