Reports are that the Chinese leader has ordered their 'maritime militia', their Hinan fishing fleet mostly, to begin to occupy the Scarborough Shoals close to the Philippines with the intent to build another base on reclaimed land. The fishermen are used to this, the government paying the ante and providing materiel, information and money.

"Beijing will start construction this year on a South China Sea islet within the Philippines’ claimed exclusive economic zone as it seeks to project its power in the disputed waters, Hong Kong media reported Monday. China will establish an outpost on Scarborough Shoal, 230 kilometres (143 miles) off the Philippine coast, theSouth China Morning Post newspaper cited an unnamed source close to the People’s Liberation Army as saying.Beijing claims nearly all the strategically vital sea, despite competing claims from several Southeast Asian neighbors, and in recent months it has developed contested reefs into artificial islands, some topped with airstrips.
Manila claims Scarborough Shoal but says China took effective control of it in 2012, stationing patrol vessels in the area and shooing away Filipino fishermen, after a two-month stand-off with the Philippine Navy."
Nicely timed with the US occupied with the Trump phenomenon, congress in it's usual hiatus and the President not quite in caretaker mode, as are we with a 2 month election campaign just under way.
This 'civillian' fleet is backed up by the navy, I suppose the question now is 'what next? Appeasement? Action? If so what and where? And by whom