Due to El Niño and global warming, the world's wild, hard corals were facing an extinction crisis. There were even some people who joked about buying some hard corals now, and 40 years later they would be worth more than gold…
Corals were strong, yet also fragile, creatures.
They were strong because they were constantly replicating and splitting, so they could survive for more than thousands of years. After they perished, the coral reefs formed from the accumulated remains would gradually rise out of the surface of the sea, forming a string of pearl-like reefs and even islands in the vast sea. For example, the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands were both composed of coral reefs.
If there were no corals, China's territorial waters would be much smaller than what they were today.
