China's President Xi Jinping is due in Cairo on Tuesday for his first state visit to Egypt in nearly a decade. It coincides with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries and comes as Beijing is presented with openings in the Middle East that it has not had in years.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi extended the invitation to Mr Xi, who will arrive from the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan. Cairo's main roads have been lined with billboards showing the two leaders shaking hands since Sunday.
Both Presidents published signed opinion articles in Egyptian media on Monday night, laying out in near-parallel language how each side views the occasion.
Mr Xi’s piece cast the visit as the launch of a "new journey with vigour and determination after 70 years of solidarity and mutual support", and dwelt at length on themes Beijing has been highlighting for months: joint leadership of the Global South, "true multilateralism" and the defence of "international justice and equity". The language took aim at the US without naming it, analysts told The National.
Mr El Sisi's article was more striking owing to its candour. Cairo is holding on to its "policy of strategic balance at a time when waves of polarisation and competition are rising", he wrote. He affirmed that Egypt's foreign policy would remain independent of that.
Egypt and China have become "partners jointly contributing to strengthening the role of the Global South in the world order in a way that achieves greater justice and equity for developing states", he said.
Mr Xi noted that China backed Egypt in its 1956 struggle to reclaim sovereignty over the Suez Canal, and that Egypt reciprocated by supporting Beijing's bid for its seat at the UN in 1971. Both countries, he wrote, "steadfastly support the just cause of the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights".
Analysts say the substance of the visit is inseparable from its timing, with the US locked in a war with Iran and shrinking its regional footprint.
"Xi's visit to Cairo comes at a time when the US is embroiled in its Iran quagmire, and in which the US has in tandem slowly pulled out of the region in several ways, presenting China with a strategic space to fill," said Egyptian political analyst Abdalla Nasef.
He noted that Russia has historically occupied that space as an alternative to the US, since Anwar Sadat's pivot to the American camp in the 1970s, but Moscow is now stretched thin.
The message on Palestine is particularly significant, Mr Nasef said, considering how global support for the issue has become amid Israel’s war on Gaza. The issue emphasises China’s intent to present itself to the Arab world as a better superpower.
"The visit is an opportunity for China to position itself as a rational actor on the world stage and particularly in the Middle East, where it has shed no blood," he said.
Mr Nasef said the visit also "marks the beginning of a new era where Chinese influence and money flow through Egypt, making up for the American money that had been lost with the dismantling of USAID and the US's changing foreign policy objectives under President [Donald] Trump".
Nadia Helmy, professor of political science at Beni Suef University and a visiting senior researcher at Lund University's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, told The National that Beijing was moving to "thwart Washington's attempts to bolster its economic and military influence in the Middle East, exploiting America's preoccupation with the regional conflict with Iran".
Beijing, she said, was using the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties to consolidate "joint leadership of the Global South" with Cairo, strengthen Egypt's role as an "indispensable corridor" for Belt and Road expansion through the Suez Canal, and institutionalise Chinese co-operation through regional blocs such as Brics, which Egypt joined in 2024.
Beijing's most pointed message was one of “reassurance to historical allies like Egypt of China's commitment to regional security, despite its involvement in other confrontations with Washington, in Iran, but also in Taiwan and the South China Sea," she said. Mr Xi's visit was also "an indirect warning" to the US that China "will not relinquish its traditional influence and vital interests in the Middle East," she added.
Mr Xi's visit coincides with intensified Egyptian-Chinese co-ordination to secure borders and international waterways in the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Bab Al Mandeb strait and the Strait of Hormuz – maritime chokepoints through which shipping has been disrupted by the Iran war.
The backbone of the bilateral relationship remains the Suez Canal Economic Zone, whose flagship is the joint industrial area that Mr Xi and Mr El Sisi inaugurated together in 2016. It has since become the largest concentration of Chinese industrial presence in the Arab world, and Cairo will be pressing for it to move up the value chain.
Bilateral trade reached $20.8 billion in 2025, although that was heavily skewed towards Chinese exports, and Egyptian officials have set a target of exceeding $25 billion by the end of this year.
Also on the table, according to Ms Helmy, is a system to convert a portion of Egypt's Chinese debt holdings into direct investment stakes in industrial projects, which would ease pressure on Cairo's foreign currency reserves at a time when the country's debt burden has become one of the most sensitive domestic political issues. The specifics are expected to be a central subject of the commercial discussions during Mr Xi’s visit, she added.
A military track runs alongside the diplomacy. The Chinese and Egyptian air forces have been conducting the joint "Eagles of Civilisation 2026" exercise at bases across Egypt since August 22. Running through early September, it is the second time the drills have been held since last year.
Egypt’s military on Monday released images of a People's Liberation Army YU-20 tanker refuelling an Egyptian Rafale jet in mid-air, a demonstration of technical interoperability between Chinese logistics and Egypt's western-supplied fighter fleet.
While both sides have stressed that the drills are not linked to any arms deals, the choreography serves a purpose, Ms Helmy said. It shows the US that China can move full air force units to the region with ease and provides a concrete demonstration for the two leaders to point to as they discuss a broader defence relationship during the visit.
Egypt, she added, is looking to diversify its sources of military equipment and ease its dependency on western arms.
