China's Reach in Egypt

This afternoon I caught up with Egypt's trade minister, Rachid Mohamed Rachid, to hear about his trip to China a few months ago. Actually, it was Rachid's second visit to Beijing in a year, and he was accompanying President Mubarak. Given how closely Egypt's economy has been linked to the United States since the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979, it was jolting to hear Rachid confirm that China will surpass the U.S. as Egypt's largest trading partner in seven or eight years.
Thanks to accelerated economic reforms, Egypt's economy has been growing at its fastest pace ever--new Trade ministry figures claim 7% a year, currently. That alone would reduce the proportional weight of Camp David-related American economic assistance to Egypt, which stands at about a half billion or so a year right now. But as Michael Elliott's TIME cover story on China this week reports, Beijing is busy extending its economic reach throughout the world, and Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, a corner of Africa adjoining western Asia, is part of that. Starting about 15 years ago, with a quickened pace over the past five years, Chinese businessmen have been quietly making trade deals across the Egyptian economy, in sectors from raw materials like cotton and marble to IT businesses like cell phone services. U.S. firms make up about half of Egypt's $12 billion annual trade, but China is catching up, with around $3 billion already. English may be the lingua franca of the Egyptian economy, but before too long there will be more Chinese than American tourists visiting the Pyramids in Giza.
Rachid, who's off to Davos in a few days, is a technocrat who has no interest in scoring political points--he's a former Unilever exec brought in by Mubarak to help drive reform-- but he didn't disagree that the changing economic scene would inevitably boost China's influence in Egypt. To some extent, he implies, that will be at America's expense. "We are not replacing an American or European relationship with a Chinese relationship," he told me. "But today, with the important role that China is playing, you simply can't ignore it...It will be unrealistic to say that in the long term this will not have a political influence. It will. Because politics have to serve commercial interests. The more we have trade with the east, it will have an impact on the political influence of China and Egypt vis a vis each other, plus the influence of the rest of the world on us. That is going to happen."
Egypt's enthusiasm for China comes at a time of declining U.S. political influence in the Arab world including in Egypt--Mubarak, for example, has visited Russia, France and Germany as well as China in the past year, but hasn't been to Washington in several years and has no plans to go. (The Chinese, Russians and Europeans don't criticize him publicly on the democracy issue.) It also comes at a time of growing strength for Islamist groups that are openly hostile to U.S. policies. In 2005 elections, the illegal Muslim Brotherhood, running candidates as independents, won a full fifth of the seats in Egypt's national assembly.
After Nasser's revolution in 1952 kicked out British influence, it was the former Soviet Union that monopolized Egypt's foreign relations. Sadat's stunning visit to Jerusalem in 1977 changed the political landscape again, this time to the U.S.'s benefit. The rising influence of China, which sends most of its exports to Europe through Egypt's Suez Canal, is a sign that the landscape will continue to evolve. Depending on how the U.S. plays its cards, Washington may or may not hold on to the paramount influence it has enjoyed for most of the time since successfully mediating the Camp David Accords in 1979 that flowed from Sadat's bold diplomacy.

By Scott MacLeod/Cairo