Article from the economist:

Nothing new but hope for some settlement.

IN THE Spratly Islands, tourism is war by other means. In March,
Taiwan, one of six claimants to this disputed smattering of sandbars
and reefs in the South China Sea, built a bird-watching hide on a
pinprick previously frequented more by soldiers than ornithologists.
In response, Vietnam dispatched a boatload of tourists on a cruise
through the archipelago the following month. Now, it is refurbishing
a former military airbase on Big Spratly, the largest of the specks
it controls, to fly in camera-wielding reinforcements. Malaysia, for
its part, is prone to unprovoked bouts of marine research in the
area. China and the Philippines are quietly fuming.

All five countries maintain a military presence of some sort in the
Spratlys (the sixth claimant, Brunei, is more retiring). In the
fiercest of many clashes over the islands, in 1988, Chinese troops
killed 70 Vietnamese sailors. As recently as 2002, Vietnam fired on
a Philippine jet in the area. But later that year, all the claimants
bar Taiwan signed an agreement to resolve their disputes by peaceful
means. Hence the resort to all-out tourism.

The Spratlys lie amid rich fishing grounds and across the main
shipping route from Europe to East Asia. They probably also sit atop
valuable oilfields. If the row is not resolved by fighting, the
degree to which different countries have exercised normal civil
administration of the islands will become an important element of
future legal claims. So, at least, the International Court of
Justice implied when it awarded two nearby islands, Ligitan and
Sipadan, to Malaysia last year over Indonesia's objections.

Vietnam, although not much of a democracy, now makes a point of
conducting elections early and often in the Spratlys. It claims that
11 local councils operate on the islands. But there cannot be much
for them to do: none of the islets reaches more than 15 feet above
sea-level, and all of them put together cover less than five square
miles (13sq km).