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No, they do not claim it as an inland water. They want to do exactly one thing there. Drill oil. They won’t impeded shipping there. What is there plan, close the shipping lanes that their economy utterly depends on?

Actually, they do, and they've started harassing non-Chinese fishermen in the region. They're not going to make it a closed military zone, they'll just insist that only Chinese commercial shipping is allowed through those waters, just as only Chinese shipping is allowed to navigate China's canals and rivers.

As a China-watcher who's read a fair amount of Chinese history, what sticks out is China's grabbiness with respect to territorial issues. The amusing thing is that it was a Chinese grad student who disabused me of the notion that China is a peaceful country. In a moment of candor, he said, quite logically, that big countries like China don't get that way by peaceful means. The National Review's John Derbyshire had this to say about China:

The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.
Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the two million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.

Every culture has a religion. The Chinese are remarkably irreligious in the conventional sense, except for a cargo cult version of paganism that should be familiar to anyone who's heard of the prosperity gospel. What passes in China for religion is a cult of national greatness - the model for Imperial Japan's world tour in the 1930's and 1940's. I believe China's neighbors are about to discover anew what their ancestors had to put up with on a routine basis before European adventurers set firm boundaries on Chinese territorial expansion 200 years ago. Our interest in the matter is the same as our interest in preventing Japan from annexing China during the pre-war era - it's never a good idea to allow an aggressive and ideologically hostile power to grow too big. More security for them means less security for us.

they'll just insist that only Chinese commercial shipping is allowed through those waters, just as only Chinese shipping is allowed to navigate China's canals and rivers.

That would be a dangerous game. The Chinese would disastrously lose face if even a single ship started flying the Stars and Stripes (and if America had an proper President who wasn't afraid to react appropriately to a historically attested casus belli). THAT is a sign of the global reach of sea-power - the ability to wave a flag at a gun boat and get them to back off.

But as you say that level of control over freight is China's eventual aim. It's not an impossible scenario - heck, another four years of Obama and any ships near the Spratleys will be full of people fleeing the US - and China is after all a master of incremental encroachment.

So - it's a great time to sell weapons to China-suppressing proxies in the area. And a great time to maintain Global sea power.

But its a bad, bad time to put any troops in harms way on the islands. The whole point of sea-power is that you don't need to occupy ground: you just have to be able to project power when you need to.