This is John Batchel. Conversation with my colleagues, Gordon Chang and James Finnell.

Jim points to rhetoric from the mainland China threatening the Philippines,

the Philippines moving to defend themselves from the encroachments of the Chinese Navy

and National Guard in the South China Sea these last years.

Jim asked the question, will China move

between now and the inauguration? His answer is multi-layered. This is Jim Finnell. He is a former

U.S. Navy intelligence captain serving the Pacific Fleet, observing the threat to the Philippines, our ally, our mutual

defense pact ally in East Asia along with Japan and other countries threatened by the People's

Republic of China's PLA Navy. More of this tonight. Here's Jim Fennell.

Will China try to instigate something between now and the

inauguration of President Trump in January of next year? Or will they just try to incrementally

peel the onion back from the Philippines even more? I think it's interesting to note that once again, the Philippines does something

in the Spratly Islands or just west of the Spratley Islands, Laota Island, which is where they're

training and operations were acting or happening, yet the Chinese came out and talked about Scarborough, so different place.

So we need to watch what the Chinese are doing.

My assessment is that they're going to probably go pretty slow because they don't know what Trump will do when he comes in.

And if they take an action now that they're not fully prepared to go all the way for,

they could backfire on them. But we just don't know.

And right now the Filipinos are really outmaneuvering Beijing in this front. And now what's going

on internally in China with these student cyclists and other things that are going on, it may not

be the right time for Xi to take an action like this,

that if he unleashes something internationally, what happens back at home?

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