Having worked in Europe for 13 years and always required to carry an alternate, then 27 years with QF and not carrying an alternate a lot of the time, I can honestly say both fuel policies work.
One thing I can say about QF’s fuel policy, if the forecast did not require an alternate and I decided to carry one, I was never questioned.

Better than pushing on with fingers crossed and declaring “Mayday Fuel” on arrival.

Macao not really suitable as tailwinds on 34 ILS can easily go above limits and the offset LOC on 16 has such high minimums that the WX needs to be nearly VFR to land. Parking space is very minimal as well.

Guangzhou often cannot be nominated as an alternate due NOTAM congestion, you need to declare an emergency to get in.

Good luck getting in Shenzhen if all the Hong Kong traffic is diverting there at once.

i operated northbound ex SYD day before yesterday at MTOW and whilst I had a very fat TEMPO (closer to 100 minutes) I didn’t have a MNL alternate. I did have of course Macau, Shenzhen, or Guangzhou but that’s not really too much of a help.

Having operated HKG- MEL last night with the cabin crew who took the QF29 northbound I know they were chockers. That means they were also likely to be MTOW ex MEL. They did a fair bit of off track diversions around weather in RPHI airspace but not sure if that contributed to the decision to divert but it’s likely they wouldn’t have had as much fuel ex MEL as I did ex SYD. I’d be reluctant to hang around with my fingers crossed for HKG with TS if I only had a bare bones TEMPO. The too probably had Guangzhou fuel but decided MNL early was the better option.

The go around in MNL was due heavy rain and no contact at minima.