As the typhoon season rages, Chinese officials will be keeping a nervous eye on the weather. The runways and harbours built on rocks and reefs in the South China Sea may be as physically precarious as the legal basis to the maritime claims they epitomise. John McManus of the University of Miami reckons the “supertyphoons” that occasionally devastate the region could, for example, damage—or destroy—the base on Fiery Cross Reef. Building atop the reef crest, which absorbed 86% of incoming waves’ energy, has damaged it irrevocably, he reckons. Waves now smash unimpeded into walls that do not appear to have been sloped correctly to dissipate their power. Just months after the base was built, satellite imagery showed a collapse—now repaired—on the island’s north-east corner. Mr McManus worries that more reef-destroying construction will play out on Scarborough Shoal, another contested territory. The science of island-building is, er, untrodden ground.

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