The Philippines is not attending China's trade show in Nanning citing tense disputes in the South China Sea this year, reports said. The event is aimed at promoting China's trade ties with Southeast Asian countries.

It is the second year in a row that the Philippines is not attending the China ASEAN Expo, reports said.

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Last year, China did not invite Philippine President Benigno Aquino even if it selected the Philippines as the event's country of honor.

Experts believe that it was due to the arbitration filed in The Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration of the Philippines in 2012.

Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research executive director, Rommel Banlaoi, said the tense three years between China and the Philippines severed relations.

Banlaoi said ties between the countries are in a sour political spat and that relations are currently at the lowest point.

However, this is not what Philippine Foreign Affairs Spokesman Charles Jose believed. Jose said that tourism and trade relations between the countries remain strong.

In fact, Chinese tourists in the Philippines increased by 70 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to official data.

Also, the Philippines exported more than it imported from China in 2011 and 2013.

Jose cited the 2011 agreement between Aquino and Hu Jintao, who was then Chinese president. It meant territorial disputes should not spoil the countries' overall relationship.

"[We] are willing to extract and isolate our territorial dispute and deal with this separately, but at the same time we try to promote and strengthen the other areas of our cooperation with China," Jose said.

Philippine academic Renato De Castro believed that China views Aquino and his Foreign Secretary as pro-American or "puppets" manipulated by the United States.

When this Americanism is gone, China will have better relations with the Philippines, De Castro said.

Tensions between the countries worsened in 2012 when China took control of Scarborough and the Philippines assumed to arbitration.

What followed were a series of vessel standoffs, soured ties and uninvited presidents.

TagsManila, Benigno Aquino III, Nanning