Middle East tourist arrivals to Asia have been on the rise in recent year, and I’ve finally managed to aggregate the data from various national sources.
Here’s the results (and a few surprises).
The number of visitors to the region have surged since 2000, from around 600,000 to over 1.6 million visitors annually. The increases owes in part to the challenges of traveling to the West after 2001, and the surge in oil prices after 2004.
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It’s not recent news. But the fact the Chinese Embassy in Syria provided 10 walkie-talkies to the Arab League’s observer mission to Syria in early January is worth a mention.
The anecdote was quoted in a confidential report written by the mission’s head and acquired by a columnist for Foreign Policy, a respected magazine on global affairs. (That said, the report comes with a small health warning, as I can’t find independent confirmation of its contents).
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A remarkable video. It shows two Chinese traders in Iraq who have sponsored a Shiite ‘mawkib’ or religious procession. The black banner at the start of the video advertises that the procession is sponsored by the People’s Republic of China.
The older trader, when asked why he sponsored the service, talks of common dreams or aspirations. The younger trader (Mr Khalid) translates.
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There’s been speculation that China has cut its oil imports from Iran during the past month owing to a pricing dispute. This comes on the back of a U.S decision to impose sanction on foreign banks dealing with Iran’s central bank.
With that in mind, I’ve updated China’s oil import data for the past month. The graph shows only a modest change in the composition of China’s oil imports from its Middle East suppliers throughout the Arab spring.
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More fakes. It used to be that Egypt was flooded by fake-Viagra. Not so much anymore: now, it’s fake-Egyptian pound coins. The common thread is that both are made in China.
Egypt’s Youm Al Saba’a reported last year that the coins are entering the country hidden in shipping container full of toys. Apparently, the number of containers makes proper inspection difficult. There’s also the risk of damaging the toys.
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I’ve argued for some time that China will find it more difficult to apply its policy of “non-intervention” in the Middle East compared to other parts of the world. It appears there are others who agree with this view.
Dr Liu Kang is a Middle East expert and Head of the Humanities Department at the highly-rated Shanghai Jiaotong University. He was also formerly at Duke University. Liu was recently interviewed by the Guangzhou-based Nanfeng Chuang magazine and has some insightful comments.
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I’ve been updating U.S. visa statistics for an article in the French journal Etudes. It’s been a few years since I have looked at the figures. They make for interesting reading.
First, non-immigrant visas issued to Middle East nationals are still below their 2000 levels, or pre-September 11. Sure, they are not far below, at 252,000 versus 275,000, but that’s still remarkable given that the Middle East’s economy has tripled in size during the same period (in current $ figures).
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One of the frustrating ironies of the blog is the more I travel, the more I observe, but the harder it is finding time to write
The past month has been especially relentless–Bahrain, Riyadh, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou–at least, that’s my excuse for the absence of posts.
I have though managed to collect a few A380 stories that help illustrate the region’s growth.
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