At first glance, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Egypt this week looks like a standard diplomatic stop: two governments seeking to deepen trade, investment and political cooperation.
Yet the meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi carries far broader geopolitical weight. China, Washington’s leading global competitor, is steadily building a far-reaching partnership with one of the United States’ most important Middle East allies as Beijing works to widen its footprint in a region undergoing rapid change.
For Xi, the visit is also an opportunity to cast China as a force for stability in the Middle East, while drawing an implicit contrast with the United States, whose decades of military involvement in the region have continued with its six-month war with Iran.
“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 earlier this year with Kathryn Selfe, a former fellow at the program.
Xi landed Tuesday evening at Cairo’s airport, where Chinese and Egyptian flags lined the arrival area. El-Sissi and military honor guards welcomed him on the tarmac during a red-carpet reception. The two leaders are expected to meet Wednesday, and Xi is also set to tour the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids.
It has been a while since Xi has visited the Mideast
The Chinese leader is scheduled to spend three days in Egypt. It is his first visit to the country in 10 years and his first trip to the region since traveling to Saudi Arabia in 2022. El-Sissi, meanwhile, has made several visits to China in recent years.
Ahead of their talks, the two presidents marked the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations by publishing warm opinion articles Tuesday in Egypt’s state-run newspapers.
In his piece, Xi said Beijing and Cairo should “expand the scope of pragmatic collaboration” through development. El-Sissi praised Chinese investment in Egypt and reaffirmed Cairo’s backing of Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China’s territory.
Egypt views its growing relationship with China as a way to diversify its strategic partnerships.
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.
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.
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 US and Egypt was $15.7 billion in 2025. Egypt is a crucial partner in US national security priorities in the region, and the countries’ leaders enjoy close ties.
China has been trying to build bridges between Mideast nations
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 US ally.
The agreement showcased China’s aspirations to compete with the United States for influence in the Mideast.
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 Feb. 28.
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.
Shortly before Hamas militants attacked Israel in 2023 and launched the war in Gaza, Xi had hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a “strategic partnership” with the Palestinian Authority.
The Suez Canal is a vital alternative to the Strait of Hormuz
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.
“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 views Egypt “as a base to reach the wider Arab and African world, at a time when the US has less attention to spare there,” said Rakhmat.
In August, China and Egypt held a multiday 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 Organization, a political and security group billed as a counterweight to US global influence.
The leaders of Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran attended the conference in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek.
The trip also comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s “economic onslaught” on Iran’s financial connections around the world.
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.
Beijing says its trade with Iran has always abided by international law.
