After years of shifting the Philippines closer to China, President Rodrigo Duterte appears to be leaning back toward the U.S.

The 75-year-old leader on Tuesday gave his most forceful defense yet of a 2016 arbitration ruling in favor of the Philippines that said Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea breached international law. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Duterte said the decision "is now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon.”

"We firmly reject attempts to undermine it,” Duterte said, without naming China. "We welcome the increasing number of states that have come in support of the award and what it stands for — the triumph of reason over rashness, of law over disorder, of amity over ambition.”