As part of my author talk series, I spoke with Yuting Wang, who is a professor of sociology at American University of Sharjah, about her 2020 book, Chinese in Dubai: Money, Pride, and Soul-Searching.
It’s a great book, based on her field work with the Chinese expatriate community in the UAE, which is incredibly dynamic, diverse, and large. In 2000 there were around 7,000 Chinese living in the Emirates; in 2022 it was estimated at 400,000, roughly 4% of the country’s population. Given the competitive dynamics of the US-China relationship it’s easy to think of China in the region in purely geopolitical terms, but on the ground it’s very different, and Yuting’s work does a fantastic job of putting a human face on China-MENA relations.
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