They may be neutral, but China doesn't care much. I've personally seen in cca 2014 in Philippine's Palawan islands (near El Nido, great diving place btw) big mo

They may be neutral, but China doesn't care much. I've personally seen in cca 2014 in Philippine's Palawan islands (near El Nido, great diving place btw) big modern military ship plus few smaller that were there stationed semi-permanently. When I checked online back then there were already some provocations from Chinese side happening so this was the response.