Xi’s Egypt visit tests Cairo’s balancing act

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi held talks in Cairo on Wednesday, closing out Xi’s first visit to Egypt in a decade with a series of signed agreements, memoranda of understanding, and a joint statement on bilateral ties. The visit, timed to the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, coincided with the joint Egyptian-Chinese “Eagles of Civilisation” air exercise, launched 22 August to strengthen military ties between the two countries’ air forces. It also followed a report that Chinese tech giant Huawei had bid to supply Egypt with more than 2,000 artificial intelligence (AI) computing chips for a data centre.