The Chinese Foreign Minister's visit to Egypt
On 15 January, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang met in Cairo with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit and his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry. Qin Gang’s Egyptian visit was the last - and perhaps most important - step in China’s diplomatic tour of Africa, which passed through Ethiopia, where the headquarters of the African Union is, Gabon, Angola, and Benin, and was essentially aimed at consolidating Beijing’s leadership role across the continent.
The dense agenda of meetings with the Egyptian leadership allowed the Chinese delegation to address several issues: in addition to regional and international affairs, with particular attention to the fight against the Covid-19 and the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, the parties reiterated the centrality of Sino-Egyptian relations, as well as the Chinese interest in increasing investment flows in the country, especially in tourism and strategic industrial infrastructures. This is a commitment of no small importance, especially considering Egypt’s poor socio-economic situation, which has been severely destabilised in recent months due to the devaluation of the national currency, which has lost 35% of its value against the dollar over the course of 2022, and the galloping growth of inflation, which has risen by 21.9% year-on-year as of December 2022.
The declared objective of both sides is the will to strengthen and expand the existing global strategic partnership. Egypt, in fact, is a geo-economic player of particular importance for China: at the trade level, the two countries reached around $20 billion in trade in 2021, marking an annual increase of 37.3%. According to data released in January 2022 by the General Administration of China Customs, exports from China to Egypt amounted to $18.27 billion (+34% year-on-year), while Chinese imports from Egypt, consisting mainly of crude oil, fuel, and distillation products, reached $1.7 billion (+84.8% year-on-year). Overall, Egypt accounts for just under 5% of China’s trade with MENA, while its market is worth 35% of Beijing’s trade in North Africa as a whole.
Beijing’s strong economic and commercial interest in the North African country reveals a long-term goal: that of creating a secure strategic and industrial maritime outpost between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea through the establishment of a Chinese land post along the Suez Canal, an important global transport route and a crucial link in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ‘maritime route’.
Although Sino-Egyptian relations focus on economic aspects and infrastructure construction, the strategic synergy is undergoing a phase of multifaceted and converging geopolitical visions. Today, in fact, bilateral relations seem to be oriented towards the construction of new development scenarios with complementary action plans essentially addressed to the technological (space, digital and telecommunications), industrial (manufacturing) and infrastructural (ports, construction and ‘major works’) sectors. One would see in this, therefore, a mutual attempt to converge the respective development strategies, i.e. the Egyptian ‘Vision 2030’ and the Chinese BRI, in order to strengthen them. If Egypt aims at developing its economy through Belt and Road Initiative funds and investments, the Chinese global strategy aims at exploiting Cairo’s pivotal role to strengthen its position beyond the Asian continent.
Therefore, besides witnessing an important step in strengthening the Sino-Egyptian strategic partnership, the Chinese representative’s visit to Cairo highlights a clear attempt by Beijing to define a new qualitative leap in the bilateral relationship.
