Xi Jinping Egypt visit deepens China-Egypt ties and boosts Middle East influence

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Egypt this week is being presented as a step to deepen economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries. But the visit also carries wider significance, with China seeking to strengthen ties with one of America’s key allies in the Middle East as it expands its influence in a region that is changing quickly.

Xi is also seeking to cast China as a stabilising force in the region and draw a contrast with the United States, which has long been militarily involved there. “China continues to build up its soft power reserves while the United States self-sabotages its own stock,” Amr Hamzawy, director of the Washington-based Carnegie Middle East Program, wrote in a paper earlier this year with Kathryn Selfe, a former fellow at the programme.

Xi arrived at Cairo airport on Tuesday evening, where Chinese and Egyptian flags were on display. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and military guards received him on the tarmac with a red-carpet ceremony. The two leaders are scheduled to hold talks on Wednesday, and Xi is also expected to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum near the pyramids of Giza.

Xi will be in Egypt for three days. It is his first visit to the country in a decade and his first trip to the region since visiting Saudi Arabia in 2022. El-Sissi has visited China several times in recent years. Marking 70 years of diplomatic ties, both leaders published opinion pieces on Tuesday in Egypt’s state-run newspapers. Xi wrote that Beijing and Cairo should “expand the scope of pragmatic collaboration” through development, while el-Sissi praised China’s investments in Egypt and repeated Cairo’s support for China’s claim that Taiwan is part of its territory.

Egypt sees its growing ties with China as a way to diversify its strategic partnerships. In 2023, Egypt was invited to join BRICS, the grouping of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and is seen as a counterweight to Western-led institutions such as the G7. A year later, Egypt signed agreements with China linked to the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s flagship policy to build power and transport infrastructure around the world. China has invested more than USD 10 billion in Egypt, including in a business hub east of Cairo and an electric rail line for industry in the Nile Delta. Annual trade between the two countries is estimated at USD 20 billion, according to government figures. Trade between the US and Egypt stood at USD 15.7 billion in 2025, and Egypt remains an important partner in US national security priorities in the region.

China has also tried to position itself as a bridge-builder in the Middle East. In 2023, Beijing brokered an agreement to restore diplomatic ties between Iran, its most important regional ally and oil supplier, and Saudi Arabia, a long-time US ally. The deal highlighted China’s ambition to compete with the US for influence in the region. Since then, ties between Riyadh and Tehran have frayed. Iran attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as part of its retaliation against the US and Israel, which launched the war on February 28. China has also long backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which much of the Arab world sees as central to regional stability. Shortly before Hamas militants attacked Israel in 2023 and triggered the war in Gaza, Xi hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a “strategic partnership” with the Palestinian Authority.

With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted by the Iran war, the Suez Canal, controlled by Egypt, has become an important alternative route for energy supplies leaving the region. “China has good reason to strengthen ties with the country that controls the route still open,” said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a Middle East expert with Jakarta’s Center of Economic and Law Studies. Xi sees Egypt “as a base to reach the wider Arab and African world, at a time when the US has less attention to spare there,” Rakhmat said. In August, China and Egypt held a multi-day air exercise at several Egyptian bases, the first combat exercise involving China’s J-16 fighter jets and Egypt’s French-made Rafale fighters.

Xi arrived in Cairo after attending a two-day summit of the 10-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Leaders from Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran attended the conference, which is billed as a counterweight to US global influence. His visit also comes after what was described as the Trump administration’s “economic onslaught” on Iran’s financial links worldwide. The sanctions are aimed at isolating Iran from its remaining economic partners, including China, which buys more than 80 per cent of Iranian oil shipments, usually through indirect channels. Beijing has said its trade with Iran has always complied with international law. Overall, Xi’s Egypt visit brings together bilateral ties, regional diplomacy and China’s wider push to expand its role in the Middle East.

With PTI Inputs

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