On the surface, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Egypt this week is a run-of-the-mill opportunity for two countries to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties.
But there is deep subtext to the meeting between Mr. Xi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi: China, the United States’ top global rival, is cultivating an extensive relationship with one of America’s key allies in West Asia as it moves to expand its influence in the rapidly changing region. Mr. Xi aims to present China as a stabiliser in the region and contrast it with the United States, which for decades has been militarily entangled there — its six-month war with Iran being just the latest example. Mr. El-Sissi and military guards greeted him on the tarmac with a red-carpet ceremony. Xi plans to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum, near the pyramids of Giza. Mr. Xi will be in Egypt for three days. Mr. El-Sissi has visited China multiple times in recent years. Mr. Mr. El-Sissi lauded China’s investments in Egypt and reiterated Cairo’s support for China’s claim that Taiwan is part of its territory. Egypt views its growing relationship with China as a way to diversify its strategic partnerships. With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted by the Iran war, the Suez Canal — which is controlled by Egypt — has become an important alternative path for getting energy supplies out of the region. Mr. Rakhmat. Mr. The leaders of Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran attended the conference in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek.
Xi arrived Tuesday (September 1, 2026) evening at the Cairo airport, which was adorned with Chinese and Egyptian flags. The leaders are scheduled to hold talks on Wednesday (September 2, 2026), and Mr. It is his first visit there in a decade, and his first trip to the region since visiting Saudi Arabia in 2022. The leaders marked 70 years of diplomatic ties by publishing friendly opinion pieces Tuesday (September 1, 2026) in Egypt’s state-run newspapers. In 2023, Egypt was invited to join the BRICS bloc of nations, a grouping of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and is seen as a counterbalance to Western-led institutions such as the G7. Shortly before Hamas militants attacked Israel in 2023 and launched the war in Gaza, Mr. In August, China and Egypt held a multi-day air exercise at several bases across Egypt — the first-ever combat exercise for China’s J-16 fighter jets and Egypt’s French-made Rafale fighters. Xi is visiting Cairo after attending a two-day conference of the 10-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a political and security group billed as a counterweight to U.S. global influence. The sanctions aim to isolate the Islamic Republic from its remaining economic partners, including China, which buys more than 80% of Iranian oil shipments, usually through indirect channels.
“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 along with Kathryn Selfe, a former fellow at the program. Xi wrote that Beijing and Cairo should “expand the scope of pragmatic collaboration” through development. Xi had hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a “strategic partnership” with the Palestinian Authority. “China has good reason to strengthen ties with the country that controls the route still open,” said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a West Asia expert with Jakarta’s Center of Economic and Law Studies. Xi views Egypt “as a base to reach the wider Arab and African world, at a time when the U.S. has less attention to spare there,” said Mr. The trip also comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s “economic onslaught” on Iran’s financial connections around the world. Beijing says its trade with Iran has always abided by international law.
A year later, Egypt signed agreements with China to collaborate on its Belt and Road Initiative, a signature policy of Xi’s that seeks to build power and transportation infrastructure around the world. Egypt is a crucial partner in U.S. national security priorities in the region, and the countries’ leaders enjoy close ties. The agreement showcased China’s aspirations to compete with the United States for influence in the West Asia. China has cast itself as a regional mediator in other ways. It has long advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is seen by the Arab world as a linchpin to regional stability.
China has invested more than $10 billion in Egypt, building a business hub east of the capital, Cairo, and an electric rail line for industry in the Nile Delta. Annual trade between the two countries is estimated at $20 billion, according to government figures. Trade between the U.S. and Egypt was $15.7 billion in 2025. In 2023, Beijing brokered a deal to reestablish diplomatic ties between Iran — its most important regional ally and oil supplier — and Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally. Iran attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as part of its retaliation against the U.S. and Israel, which launched the war on February 28.
Since then, ties between Riyadh and Tehran have frayed.
