By the end of the trip, the group was most excited not by Shanghai’s tourist attractions but by
, real-world AI applications and the digital infrastructure visible throughout China’s cities. “They came with lots of questions,” Liu recalled. “What are Chinese universities and tech majors like? How advanced are AI and robotics? They were interested in figuring out whether China might be a place for their studies and development.”
According to Chinese immigration authorities, inbound arrivals from Gulf countries rose sharply in 2024 and continued to grow in 2025, following the expansion of visa-free policies. The China Culture Centre in the UAE reported that over 150,000 nationals from the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries travelled to China last year, a more than 100 per cent increase compared with 2024.