Yet the importance of these determinants, which are described as objective, does not diminish the relative weight of subjective determinants.
These are associated with political leaders and elites and encompass political doctrine, mutual perceptions among political leaders and elites, and the images they hold of one another. The influence of objective determinants and variables passes through their subjective counterparts.
The former may exert a positive influence: two countries may share a positive history; their geopolitical circumstances may encourage cooperation and create a foundation for genuine economic interests; and they may possess a degree of cultural and ideological affinity.
Even so, these objective variables may fail to establish genuine and strong relations between the two countries because of the condition of the subjective variables. Political leaders on both sides may hold conflicting political doctrines or negative perceptions of one another. In such cases, subjective variables obstruct the translation of objective variables into a positive reality. They may even cause positive objective determinants to be interpreted negatively.
Relations between Egypt and China rest on a set of positive objective variables. The history of the two countries contains no negative experiences.
On the contrary, the Chinese still remember that Egypt was among the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic of China, while Egyptians continue to remember that China has always been at the forefront of the countries that supported the historic choices of the Egyptian people.
Despite the cultural differences between the two countries, these differences have never produced a clash between them. A mutual perception has taken root that each country represents the continuation of one of humanity’s great civilisations. More recently, the two countries have increasingly succeeded in narrowing the linguistic and cultural gap by expanding the study of Chinese in Egypt and Arabic in China, while the relative weight of religion in shaping their images of one another has declined. Although Egypt and China do not belong to the same geographical region, geopolitics remains an important factor in broadening and deepening their shared economic and security interests.
The Red Sea and the Suez Canal constitute a principal link between China and the Asian regions on one side and Europe on the other, and it would be difficult to replace them with another maritime route. This explains the importance accorded by the maritime component of the Belt and Road Initiative to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, in addition to Chinese investments in the area west of Suez.
History and geopolitics therefore remain two important foundations for building distinguished relations between the two countries. Yet these objective determinants and variables could not have produced the qualitative transformation in bilateral relations over the past ten years without the contribution of subjective determinants, foremost among them the nature of the two countries’ political leaderships, represented by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The influence of El-Sisi and Xi Jinping on the course of relations during the past ten years has arisen from a set of political and personal traits shared by the two leaders. These traits indicate not only a state of political compatibility between them, but also their belonging to a type of unconventional political leadership in the world. The first of these traits is the similarity in their political doctrines. The point is not merely that they share the same political doctrine, but, more importantly, the nature of that doctrine.
It rests on several components, foremost among them a belief in the nation-state as the fundamental unit of the world order and the need to protect it against non-state actors. Closely connected is the preservation of sovereignty as a foundation of the international order that ensured its stability for many decades. Another component is their belief in the importance of a stable, secure, and prosperous regional neighbourhood. Some political leaders, particularly those pursuing major development projects, build their interests and projects at the expense of their regions and immediate neighbours. This does not apply to El-Sisi or Xi Jinping.
Each believes that the stability and sustainability of his development project depend on, and are intrinsically linked to, the existence of a stable, secure, and prosperous regional neighbourhood. This philosophy has underpinned El-Sisi’s vision of the Eastern Mediterranean and its important maritime resources, as well as his approach to the Middle East more broadly.
It has also shaped his determination to restore the region to its natural order, re-establish stability, and reinstate the nation-state as the principal political unit upon which the region should be based. The same applies to President Xi Jinping, who believes in a strong and positive relationship between the sustainability of China’s rise and the existence of a secure, stable, and prosperous region and neighbouring countries.
This philosophy has governed the Belt and Road Initiative, which links China and its internal regions to several parts of the world, foremost among them its immediate neighbouring regions: South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. It has also governed China’s relationship with the regions and maritime spaces that constitute an extension of the waters directly connected to China. In addition to this important convergence in political doctrine, El-Sisi and Xi Jinping belong to the category of strong reformist political leaders.
These political and personal characteristics of El-Sisi and Xi Jinping have not only strengthened the positive effects of the objective determinants and variables responsible for the current state of Egyptian-Chinese relations and helped broaden and deepen those relations.
They have also opened the way for Egypt and China to assume an international role, whether through coordinated bilateral action or independently. China’s role in advocating reform of the international order and the global economic system, as well as the restructuring of the international institutional architecture, cannot be separated from the role played by Egypt and President El-Sisi in defending the interests of developing and emerging economies.
* The writer is chairman of the board of Al-Ahram Foundation.
Short link: