{"id":833693,"date":"2026-09-02T03:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/833693\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T03:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:08:14","slug":"xi-visits-egypt-as-china-seeks-deeper-influence-across-the-mideast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/833693\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi visits Egypt as China seeks deeper influence across the Mideast"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAIRO — On the surface, Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s<\/a> visit to Egypt this week is a run-of-the-mill opportunity for two countries to strengthen economic and diplomatic ties.<\/p>\n

But there is deep subtext to the meeting between Xi and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi<\/a>: China, the United States\u2019 top global rival, is cultivating an extensive relationship<\/a> with one of America’s key allies in the Middle East as it moves to expand its influence<\/a> in the rapidly changing region.<\/p>\n

Xi aims to present China as a stabilizer in the region and contrast it with the United States, which for decades has been militarily entangled there \u2014 its six-month war with Iran<\/a> being just the latest example.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina continues to build up its soft power reserves while the United States self-sabotages its own stock,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

Xi arrived Tuesday evening at the Cairo airport, which was adorned with Chinese and Egyptian flags. El-Sissi and military guards greeted him on the tarmac with a red-carpet ceremony. The leaders are scheduled to hold talks on Wednesday, and Xi plans to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum, near the pyramids of Giza.<\/p>\n

Xi will be in Egypt for three days. It is his first visit there in a decade, and his first trip to the region since visiting Saudi Arabia in 2022. El-Sissi has visited China multiple times in recent years.<\/p>\n

The leaders marked 70 years of diplomatic ties by publishing friendly opinion pieces Tuesday in Egypt\u2019s state-run newspapers.<\/p>\n

Xi wrote that Beijing and Cairo should \u201cexpand the scope of pragmatic collaboration” through development. El-Sissi lauded China’s investments in Egypt and reiterated Cairo’s support of China’s claim that Taiwan is part of its territory<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Egypt views its growing relationship with China<\/a> as a way to diversify its strategic partnerships.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A year later, Egypt signed agreements with China to collaborate on its Belt and Road Initiative, a signature policy of Xi\u2019s that seeks to build power and transportation infrastructure around the world.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Trade between the U.S. and Egypt was $15.7 billion in 2025. Egypt is a crucial partner in U.S. national security priorities<\/a> in the region, and the countries’ leaders enjoy close ties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Beijing brokered a deal<\/a> to reestablish diplomatic ties between Iran \u2014 its most important regional ally and oil supplier \u2014 and Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally. The agreement showcased China\u2019s aspirations to compete with the United States<\/a> for influence in the Mideast.<\/p>\n

Since then, ties between Riyadh and Tehran have frayed. Iran attacked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as part of its retaliation against the U.S. and Israel<\/a>, which launched the war on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Shortly before Hamas militants attacked Israel in 2023 and launched the war in Gaza, Xi had hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and announced a \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d with the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n

With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted by the Iran war, the Suez Canal \u2014 which is controlled by Egypt \u2014 has become an important alternative path<\/a> for getting energy supplies out of the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina has good reason to strengthen ties with the country that controls the route still open,\u201d said Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a Middle East expert with Jakarta\u2019s Center of Economic and Law Studies.<\/p>\n

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,\u201d said Rakhmat.<\/p>\n

In August, China and Egypt held a multiday air exercise at several bases across Egypt \u2014 the first-ever combat exercise for China\u2019s J-16 fighter jets and Egypt\u2019s French-made Rafale fighters.<\/p>\n

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 U.S. global influence. The leaders of Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran attended the conference in Kyrgyzstan\u2019s capital, Bishkek.<\/p>\n

The trip also comes on the heels of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201ceconomic onslaught\u201d<\/a> on Iran\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Beijing says its trade with Iran has always abided by international law.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Noha el-Hennawy in Cairo and Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAIRO — On the surface, Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s visit to Egypt this week is a run-of-the-mill opportunity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,28,3321,793,228242,1576,3,139727,111,21,19,22,20,25,24,965],"class_list":["post-833693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-business","tag-energy-industry","tag-general-news","tag-iran-war","tag-military-and-defense","tag-news","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}