Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Cairo on Tuesday evening for his first visit to Egypt in a decade, greeted by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the tarmac with a red-carpet ceremony, folk dancers, and streets across the capital lined with Chinese and Egyptian flags. The two leaders are scheduled to hold talks on Wednesday and are expected to sign a series of economic agreements covering artificial intelligence, transport, and energy, as well as discuss the mounting fallout from the ongoing US-Iran war.

The visit carries significant strategic weight. The six-month conflict — which began when the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February — has disrupted trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz, making Egypt's control of the Suez Canal increasingly critical for global energy supplies.