Xi visits Egypt as China seeks deeper influence across Mideast

CAIRO

China’s President Xi Jinping and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi wave upon his arrival at the Cairo International Airport for an official visit to Egypt in Cairo, on Sept 1, 2026. (AFP via AP Photo)

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 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 the Middle East as it moves to expand its influence in the rapidly changing region.

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 — its six-month war with Iran being just the latest example.

“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 arrived on Sept. 1 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 held talks on Sept. 2.

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.

The leaders marked 70 years of diplomatic ties by publishing friendly opinion pieces on Sept. 1 in Egypt’s state-run newspapers.

Xi wrote that Beijing and Cairo should “expand 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.

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 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 U.S. and Egypt was $15.7 billion in 2025. Egypt is a crucial partner in U.S. national security priorities in the region, and the countries’ leaders enjoy close ties.

In 2023, Beijing brokered a deal to reestablish diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The agreement showcased China’s aspirations to compete with the United States for influence in the Mideast.

China has cast itself as a regional mediator in other ways. It has long advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 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.

With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz heavily disrupted by the Iran war, the Suez Canal 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 U.S. has less attention to spare there,” said Rakhmat.