ANBOUND’s founder Mr. Kung Chan has recently reached a theoretical conclusion that the war in Ukraine and the war involving Iran will have a profound socioeconomic impact on Chengdu, China. He posited that these conflicts will, to a certain extent, contribute to the economic revival and prosperity of Chengdu, further solidify its status as a window city in China's western region and along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and establish the city as an unquestionable regional core city. Further research conducted by ANBOUND has demonstrated that Mr. Kung Chan's theoretical deduction is largely valid.
The Russia-Ukraine war and the continuously escalating conflict between the U.S. -Israel and Iran in the Middle East are major external variables in recent years that have reshaped the global geopolitical landscape, cross-border personnel flow rules, and the international aviation operation system. Although these two geopolitical conflicts occurring in the Eurasian and West Asian regions are geographically distant from the inland city of Chengdu, data on urban passenger flows, port operational momentum, and the evolution of internationalization structures indicate that the sharp rise in global geopolitical risks has created a distinctly favorable environment for inbound personnel flows in Chengdu. In contrast, some cities in China's eastern and coastal regions have experienced negative performance in the fluctuations in inbound visitors and a contraction in cross-border travel. Chengdu's position as a window city in the "world island" region has surged abruptly due to the outbreak and continuation of these two wars.
In 2025, inbound tourist arrivals in Chengdu increased by 48.9% year-on-year, and international tourism revenue grew by 53.9% year-on-year. Its inbound reception scale ranked fifth nationwide, making it the only city in the central and western regions of the country to enter the national top five. This growth trend continued into 2026. From January to May, the city accumulated 1.124 million inbound tourist visits, including 889,000 foreign visitors, representing a year-on-year increase of 43.3%. This growth rate was significantly higher than the national average, exhibiting a differentiated growth characteristic that clearly sets it apart from the overall national trend.
Furthermore, foreign mobility data at aviation ports further corroborates the passenger flow transfer dividend brought about by geopolitical conflicts.
As of the end of July 2026, inbound foreign tourists at Chengdu aviation ports reached 570,000, a year-on-year increase of 37.9%, and the passenger agglomeration effect of open ports continued to be released. Among them, favorable open policies such as the 240-hour visa-free transit and unilateral visa exemption, coupled with the opportunity for the restructuring of global geopolitical air routes, have pushed the proportion of visa-free inbound personnel close to 80%. All of these serve as the core institutional support for the continuous growth of foreign passenger flows. During the 2026 summer transport peak, inbound and outbound foreign personnel in Sichuan reached 243,000, a year-on-year increase of 23.2%, and the activity level of foreign-related personnel flows continued to climb. In terms of source market structure, Russia, Thailand, and Malaysia firmly remain among the core source countries. Inbound scenarios cover diverse fields such as sightseeing, business conferences, academic exchanges, cross-border transit, and business residence. The global passenger flow restructuring forced by geopolitical conflicts has completely rewritten Chengdu's traditional pattern of tourism entry. Instead, there is now a composite cross-border flow model of the simultaneous development of tourism, business, transit, and exchanges.
The war involving Iran in the Middle East has deeply disrupted the global aviation hub pattern and the Eurasian cross-border navigation system. The functions of traditional core transit hubs in the Middle East have continuously weakened. Regional routes have contracted sharply, airspace transit risks have soared, international aviation fuel prices have fluctuated violently, and global long-haul cross-border travel costs have risen across the board. This has forced the redistribution of international routes, transit passenger flows, and cross-border trade resources. Backed by the vast hinterland of western China, with a mature port transit system and stable navigation conditions, Chengdu has absorbed the Eurasian and Afro-Asian diverted passenger flows and route resources resulting from the geopolitical turbulence in the Middle East. The Central Asian source market has also seen breakthrough growth, becoming a brand-new growth pole for Chengdu's foreign-related personnel flows.
During the 2026 Labor’s Day holiday, tourist arrivals from Uzbekistan to Chengdu surged by 400% year-on-year, while passenger flows to Chengdu from Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan expanded significantly at the same time. The Russian direction and the Central Asian direction are superimposed simultaneously and driven bidirectionally by the two wars, jointly constituting the core support for the growth of Chengdu's foreign-related personnel flows.
Today's Chengdu, driven by the large-scale entry of foreign personnel, has directly led to the expansion and quality upgrading of basic service industries such as hotels, catering, retail, transportation, and culture and tourism. At the same time, it has compelled the iterative upgrading of the city's internationalized supporting facilities. This, in turn, is a driver of high-end internationalized formats such as foreign-language convenience services, international payment systems, international medical care, international education, cross-border business consulting, and foreign-related legal services. As it stands, the two wars have actually provided Chengdu with an incremental dividend, substantially enhancing the city's opening-up capacity and core competitiveness, and becoming the core incremental driving force for Chengdu to break through its inland geographical limitations and sprint toward becoming an international metropolis.
In the past, although Chengdu had its own uniqueness, its inland geographical location still brought closed characteristics to this city. Now, because of the two wars, Chengdu has suddenly transformed into a window and gateway facing the western side. While Chengdu’s past strategic positioning was largely inward-looking, today it has emerged as a significant gateway to the west, attracting growing global attention and extending its influence well beyond the region.
There are two main reasons behind this. First, Chengdu has seen the rapid expansion of trade, markets, exchanges, communication, and other forms of interaction with Russia and Central Asia. Second, it is the only major city in western China that has a well-developed urban foundation, an established degree of openness, and a rich diversity of cultural traditions. Together, these two factors have been key drivers of Chengdu’s ability to capture new opportunities and undergo significant transformation amid the upheavals caused by the “two wars”.
Because of the existence of the wars, whether in the direction of Russia or Central Asia, there are situations where channels are blocked, and trade exchanges are difficult. In addition, the U.S. and European sanctions against Russia and Iran have their impacts. The barriers to trade, capital, commodity, technology, and tourism flows between Chengdu and Russia and Central Asia have risen substantially. Travel costs too have soared, and travel channels have continued to narrow. Consequently, the Russian and Central Asian directions are forced to make large-scale structural shifts to cope with the pressure of geopolitical conflicts lasting for several years. Mr. Kung Chan believes that once this structural shift has taken place, even if the situation changes significantly in the future and flows toward Russia and Central Asia undergo some reversal, they are unlikely to return to their “pre-war” levels.
Final analysis conclusion:
From the perspective of Chengdu’s international development, the true strategic significance of the two wars lies not in the short-term increase in passenger traffic. Rather, they have opened up new areas of international growth that were previously difficult for Chengdu to access and strengthened its position as a core city within the World-Island region.
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He Yan is a researcher at ANBOUND, an independent think tank.
