China is facing an uphill battle on two fronts. At home, government prestige is waning as the economy falters with Chinese people sending their money abroad as the stock market stumbles amid a slowing economy and a deteriorating currency.

And as the bad economic news continues to drip out of China so do the dispatches about its military maneuvers in the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Hanoi and the West Philippine Sea in Manila, where world patience with Beijing over this issue is again wearing thin.