I believe China will do whatever the heck china wants in the SCS and short of them doing something totally illegal and wrong where actual human lives are lost and where some fairly reasonable Chinaphiles here would even gasp, there is really not much the US can or will do about it.
All this back and forth rhetoric and dog and pony show is for the consumption of the national voting public.
In truth, the US (regardless of who the POTUS is) has very little influence on Chinese ambitions and intentions in the SCS.
That is the damn truth and as hard as it is for me to admit it's really the reality.
Actually Kwai, we're just trying to maintain a level playing field, making it clear that we will maintain freedom of navigation.. why is that a problem if people have no ill intent... and it does make a difference "who" is President...
Maybe you should touch base with some of your peers who are still serving in the US military,, there are grave concerns over basic "seamanship" in the Jr. Officer ranks, the previous administration "cutting the heart out of core skill sets",, Jr. Officers where unable to read and navigate with radar in poor conditions, and showed a decisive hesitancy when navigating the vessel out of harms way... proven without a shadow of a doubt in the McCain collision.
So there has been a butt-kicking, and some have lost their jobs, and some have been "jacked up", the point is that core competency is a prime focus of our immediate future. So yes, it does matter who the President is, and yes Mr. Trump has appointed Mr. Mattis to maintain FON in the SCS, he does indeed mean it, to attribute such operations as "posturing", leads our adversaries to the mistaken impression that we will not act, and you of all people here on SDF should know better than that.
I can assure you, Secretary Mattis and Secretary Pompeo are not "posturing" for the camera..