China’s Xi Jinping to visit Egypt for first time in over a decade

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Egypt in the coming days – his first trip to the country since 2016, as Beijing and Cairo pursue deeper trade, security and technology ties amid regional instability and surveillance concerns.

The stay, expected to last from 30 August to 3 September, will follow Xi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Xi is set to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for talks that Beijing says will contribute to "safeguarding peace and stability in the region". China’s foreign ministry said the state visit holds "special significance" for bilateral ties, while Egypt’s presidency said the leaders will discuss their strategic partnership and regional and international issues.

The trip coincides with 70 years of diplomatic relations, with Egypt being the first Arab country to establish formal relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1956. Sisi last travelled to Beijing in May 2024, where both sides agreed a three-year action plan covering trade, technology, security and climate change.

Trade and investment

China has become one of Egypt’s main commercial partners, although the relationship remains heavily imbalanced.

Bilateral trade reached around $20.8bn in 2025, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, up from $17.38bn in 2024. Egyptian exports to China are estimated at $2bn–$3bn, while Chinese imports are valued at about $15bn–$16bn.

Cairo has sought to convert Chinese investment into manufacturing capacity and exports. This month, Egyptian and Chinese companies signed 17 export contracts worth about $168m, including agricultural, food, mineral and engineering products.

Chinese companies have expanded their presence in Ain Sokhna’s Suez Canal Economic Zone, where more than 200 firms now operate. Beijing views the zone as a manufacturing and logistics gateway to European, African and Middle Eastern markets, while Egypt hopes it will bring jobs, foreign currency and technology transfer.

The partnership has gained strategic weight during disruption to Middle Eastern energy and shipping routesdue to the US-Israel war with Iran that heavily impacted the key maritime corridor through the Strait of Hormuz. China depends heavily on the region for crude imports, while Egypt’s Suez Canal remains one of the most important links between Asian and European trade.

Military and technology cooperation

Security cooperation has also accelerated between the two countries. On 22 August, Egypt and China began the Eagles of Civilization 2026 air exercise, which includes training in planning and managing aerial combat.

Six Chinese J-16 fighter jets reportedly flew more than 6,000km in nine hours to take part, marking the first time the aircraft had reached Mediterranean Africa for an exercise. Analysts argue that the drills signal Beijing’s growing ability to project military power into North Africa and Egypt’s interest in broadening defence relationships beyond its traditional Western suppliers.

Huawei has meanwhile submitted a bid to supply Egyptian authorities with 1,408 top-end Ascend 950-series AI chips for an AI training and cloud computing system, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The proposal includes another 600 chips for two inference clusters designed to run AI models.

Huawei says it could build the infrastructure within a year, where the reported plan would supply AI data centres for Egyptian military, surveillance and other government applications – potentially making Egypt an important regional platform for Huawei’s AI business.

Bloomberg reported that the US State Department contacted Nvidia, AMD and Microsoft after learning of Huawei’s pitch, seeking counter-offers and warning that unauthorised use of some AI accelerators could trigger legal sanctions.

Surveillance concerns

The reported proposal also involves iFlytek, a Chinese AI and surveillance company that offers facial and vehicle-recognition technology. Combined with a national population database and high-capacity AI computing, such a system could enable authorities to identify and track people at scale.

That raises serious rights concerns in Egypt, where authorities have been accused of closely monitoring journalists, activists, opposition figures and online critics. Human Rights Watch, among other rights groups, has pointed out how peaceful protests remain effectively banned and that authorities continue to target dissenting expression.

Egyptian digital rights groups have also recently opposed requirements for telecom users to submit facial images, fingerprints and other biometrics, warning that combining such records with state databases could enable broad profiling and surveillance.

iFlytek is likely to draw particular attention because the US Commerce Department placed it on an export blacklist in 2019 over allegations that its technology contributed to China’s repression and high-tech surveillance of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The company has denied wrongdoing.