Dick Cheney in Taiwan, Iraqis in Yiwu – China’s latest top news

Arabian nights in Zhejiang

Al Jazeera has published a rather charming video that says “Arabs fleeing violence have found new homes in an unlikely place: Yiwu,” the trading city in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province. The video profiles a Yemeni man and an Iraqi woman who have settled long term in Yiwu, speak fluent Chinese, and hope to stay, even though they have not been able to secure permanent residency.

For more on Yiwu:

• Listen to this Sinica Podcast interview with Dan Whelan, director of Bulkland, a film about Yiwu’s changing role as a center of the global trade in dollar-store trinkets.
• Read this The China Project backgrounder on the city.

A small victory for the U.S. on North Korea

On August 5, the UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose sanctions that would restrict up to a third — or $1 billion — of North Korea’s annual export revenue, Reuters reports. While the result was a victory for U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whom the New York Times noted (paywall) glowed with “obvious glee” after the decision, China cautioned that the situation would not be resolved without direct negotiations. More reporting on the recent events surrounding the Korean peninsula:

• China gives backing as South Korea offers olive branch to North / SCMP
• South Korea, U.S. agree to pressure North Korea, China hopes for North-South talks / Reuters
• North Korea shrugs off sanctions despite China’s push to end missile tests / WSJ (paywall)
• Xi’s move to slap North Korea buys time with Trump on trade / Bloomberg
• China’s leverage — and its limits — in North Korea / NPR

Dick Cheney in Taiwan

Focus Taiwan reports that former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney is on a four-day visit to Taiwan during which he will “attend a regional security forum,” according to the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agenda of the meeting includes maritime security cooperation in Asia and “regional economic integration.” Cheney was often depicted as an animating force of American aggression in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 — will his visit to Taiwan signal anything about attitudes towards Taiwan on the hawkish American right?

Worst airports for delayed flights in China

In July, we noted a Caixin report that China “experienced 7,000 more flight delays per day than it did last year,” with only around 70 percent of flights arriving on schedule. The delays are caused by weather, military exercises, drones flying illicitly near airports, and odd passenger behavior. Caixin has put some more detail into the numbers with an infographic about flight delays.

The airports with the worst records are:

• Shenzhen Bao’an SZX
• Guangzhou Baiyun CAN
• Xiamen Gaoqi XMN
• Hangzhou Xiaoshan HGH
• Beijing Capital PEK
• Shanghai Pudong PVG