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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