Abstract: China’s economy and its military capabilities have grown significantly in the last three decades, yet Southeast Asian countries responded differently to China’s foreign policy. This article examines China’s assurance and reassurance strategy toward Malaysia and the Philippines in the South China Sea territorial disputes. It points outs the ‘assurance and entrapment’ strategy that China and its neighbors deployed toward each other. China deploys different foreign discourses toward these two countries to address their concerns, and these countries also positively respond to Chinese rhetoric. However, when China was more assertive during 2010–13, they applied rhetorical strategies to constrain China’s foreign behavior. Specifically, both Malaysia and the Philippines set up different traps to gauge China’s intentions and highlight the inconsistency between China’s previous commitment on the peaceful rise and its recent assertiveness. The comparative analysis shows how they employ legitimation strategy in the territorial disputes. It concludes with policy implications for US–China relations.