Xi Jinping’s Cairo trip marks ‘best ties in history’ as Egypt seeks to balance West

Chinese President Xi Jinping is returning to Egypt after a decade as Beijing deepens its economic, military and diplomatic ties with Cairo and seeks to work more closely with Egypt on crises across the Middle East and Africa.

China’s foreign ministry last week described relations with Egypt as being “at their best in history” and said Xi’s visit would build on past cooperation while setting the direction for future ties. The visit coincides with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

It will be Xi’s first visit to Egypt since January 2016, when he addressed the Arab League in Cairo and witnessed the signing of agreements covering infrastructure, energy, finance and industrial development.

By contrast, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has visited China eight times since taking office in 2014, most recently in May 2024.

John Calabrese, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said Xi’s visit offered political benefits to both sides.

“The visit provides Beijing with an opportunity to showcase a durable, non-Western partnership with a major Arab, African and Global South state,” Calabrese said. For Egypt, it offered a way to show that it was “not a tool of the US or the West more broadly”.