The International Spectator

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The Narrative of the Rise of China and

Authoritarianism in the Global South: The Case of
Egypt

Amjed Rasheed

To cite this article: Amjed Rasheed (2022) The Narrative of the Rise of China and
Authoritarianism in the Global South: The Case of Egypt, The International Spectator, 57:2, 68-84,
DOI: 10.1080/03932729.2021.2009641

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THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR
2022, VOL. 57, NO. 2, 68–84
https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2021.2009641

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The Narrative of the Rise of China and Authoritarianism in the

Global South: The Case of Egypt
Amjed Rasheed
University of Tübingen

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Authoritarian regimes in the Global South diffuse compelling narra­ China; Belt and Road
tives of China, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its development Initiative; Egypt;
success to reinforce authoritarian practices discursively. A case illus­ Authoritarian Reinforcement
trative of this process is that of Egypt under President Abdul Fatah el-
Sisi. An analysis drawing on strategic narrative theory highlights that
the el-Sisi regime has been deploying a persuasive narrative on
China, its development experience and the BRI to reinforce author­
itarianism discursively under the pretext of preserving the state’s
sovereignty and achieving progress and the public good. Such
a process is called Authoritarian Reinforcement (AR).

In 1992, Francis Fukuyama convincingly argued that liberal democracy is humanity’s

final stage. The same year, the late theologian and sociologist Peter Berger (1992)
contended that there is no market economy without democracy. Nearly three decades
later, not only are liberal democracies worldwide in retreat (Diamond 2015), but the
market economy is also associated with authoritarianism (Foa 2018). Russia, the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and China are cases in point. Roberto Stefan Foa
explains that in the Global South, the trend is the intrinsic and extrinsic ‘instrumental’
use of authoritarian governance in achieving government effectiveness, regulatory qual­
ity, rule of law and control of corruption (ibid).
The rise of China at the global level has caused controversy on whether it will have
a positive or a negative impact on the global order and global norms. For example, David
Shambaugh (2013) argues that China will not contribute positively to world events and
remains sceptical about current norms and rules of the world order. In the same vein,
Andrew J. Nathan (2015) contends that China will harm democracy worldwide. In his
words, China undermines democracy by (i) promoting “authoritarian regimes by the power
of its example”; (ii) “attempting to burnish its national prestige abroad, partly through
international promotion of authoritarian values”; (iii) “playing a key role in a circle of
authoritarian states that pick up techniques of rule from one another”; (iv) “seeking to roll
back existing democratic institutions or to stifle sprouts of democratic change in territories
where it enjoys special influence”; (v) “helping to ensure the survival of authoritarian regimes
that are key economic and strategic partners”; (vi) “working to shape international institutions
to make them ‘regime-type-neutral’ instead of weighted in favour of democracy” (158–65).

CONTACT Amjed Rasheed [email protected]

© 2021 Istituto Affari Internazionali
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 69

On the other hand, Eric Heginbotham (2007) is convinced that China will have
a positive impact on world politics and global governance. He says that “Beijing has
embraced multilateralism and confidence-building measures to mitigate security con­
cerns” and China “is seen as having a significantly more positive impact in the world than
the United States” (22).
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, much ink has been spilt on
domestic factors of impediment to democracy (Heydemann 2013; Asseburg and
Wimmen 2016; Masoud 2015; Bellin 2004). In the article, I focus on the exogenous
dynamics impeding democracy in the region instead. Past research suggested that
colonial powers promoted authoritarianism in the MENA region (Bader et al. 2010;
Burnell and Schlumberger 2010). In addition, in its fight against terrorism, the United
States (US) cooperated with most of the authoritarian regimes, which tightened their grip
on power, as exemplified by Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen
(Ehteshami et al. 2021). Currently, signs indicate that the US-led liberal order is in retreat
(Haass 2019; Mullan 2019; Ikenberry 2018), and the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI) project of China’s President Xi Jinping – announced in 2013 – is shifting the
gravity of the international political economy towards Asia. Given that China is an
authoritarian state, one can predict that authoritarianism will spread throughout the
MENA region, especially that the region will not be immune to the BRI consequences
(Godement 2012; Ehtehsami and Horesh 2019). As Maha S. Kamel (2018) suggests: “BRI
is not merely an economic project as framed by Beijing, but [...] it represents a new stage
in China’s engagement with the region, and – if fully implemented – could have wide
geopolitical implications.” (75)
In this article, I will examine the peaceful rise of China and its impact on democracy in
MENA, one of the key regions within the BRI (Scobell 2018; Reardon-Anderson 2018;
Ehtehsami and Horesh 2019). China’s interaction with the MENA countries has rapidly
increased over the past years. Its dependency on energy resources in the MENA region
has grown more than ever before (Scobell and Nader 2016). Also, the Chinese ‘March
West’ strategy, which is also manifested in the BRI, is a clear indication of the significance
of the region in the strategic map of Beijing. The MENA countries, for their part, are keen
on establishing a partnership with China to overcome their economic troubles. Indeed,
Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have
already signed a comprehensive strategic partnership with Beijing aimed at close coordi­
nation in regional and international affairs (Fulton 2019).
As I will try to prove, China’s rise on the global scene and its increasing interaction
with the MENA countries diffuse authoritarian narratives and promote a type of
‘benevolent autocracy’ discursively. I call this process Authoritarian Reinforcement
(AR). I define AR as a discursive legitimation of authoritarian practices under the
pretext of maintaining political order, preserving sovereignty, achieving progress,
decoloniality and fairness in the international system. Moreover, AR has an indirect
effect of providing a form of authoritarian legitimation that is based not only on
‘authoritarianism effectiveness’ in the Global South regions, but also on issues of
sovereignty, independence and China’s alleged promotion of balanced and equal
international relations instead.
70 A. RASHEED

Analysing Authoritarian Reinforcement (AR) in Egypt

Like China, most of the MENA regimes are authoritarian-type regimes. The events of
the Arab Uprisings demonstrated the perseverance of this phenomenon (Masoud
2015). As the US and European powers missed the chance to support liberal reforms
following the Uprisings, there has been an increasing worldwide tendency towards
what Roberto Stefan Foa (2018) calls “modernization of authoritarianism”, where
political order and economic growth overshadow democratisation – in the perspective
of this article, discursively. This combination of authoritarianism and economic growth
in China makes it very attractive for the political regimes in the MENA region.
Nonetheless, their respective power structures are different. While the political system
in China is based on one-party rule, in the MENA region, authoritarian regimes range
from absolute monarchies (GCC countries) and liberalised autocracies (for example,
today’s Egypt) to military regimes (for example, today’s Sudan).
Autocrats worldwide often develop an armada of institutions to help them remain in
power and crush their rivals (Slater 2003). In this direction, the existing MENA author­
itarian regimes use all tools available to sustain their grip on power, including the
material power of the police, secret services and the economy; the ideational power of
the state identity and national security; and normative power tools such as the media. In
this article, I focus on the normative forces of authoritarian resilience. In order to achieve
survival, autocrats in the MENA region utilise these normative forces more than ever,
especially after that the Arab Uprisings demonstrated that past authoritarian resilience
based on coercion and semi-liberal economic policies did not save long-lasting author­
itarian regimes such as Mubarak’s in Egypt or Ben Ali’s in Tunisia (Gause 2011; Bellin
2012; Droz-Vincent 2011). This normative power is exercised through narratives spread
by state and pro-state media agencies. Indeed, it has been proven that political regimes
depend on narratives diffused by media to communicate their viewpoints to the public
(Gurevitch et al. 1982). Also, “the press is stunningly successful in telling its readers what
to think about” (Cohen 1963, 13), and shapes public perceptions towards specific issues
(Briant et al. 2011).
Moreover, narratives are the essence of social phenomena. As Alasdair Macintyre
(1981) argued, humans are story-telling animals. Narratives are systems of thought and
visual productions of power. They are forms of power exercise (Foucault in Lotringer
1996) that are related to the socio-cultural context (Halliday 1993) and institutionalise
ways of talking, thinking and acting (Wodak and Meyer 2001). Narratives not only
render social phenomena but constitute reality too, according to Ann Tickner
(1992, 6). Similarly, language is “not only the means by which things are named but
the schema in which things are placed in relation, and the medium in which those names
and those relations are changed” (Norton 2004, 12). Hence, narratives are crucial to
understanding the processes and the motives of AR.
Supporting Christopher Walker’s (2016) “Hijacking of soft power” thesis, I argue that
the normative forces of MENA autocrats are manifested in their positive narrative of
China’s development experience as a soft power tool to promote authoritarianism in the
name of preserving sovereignty and achieving public good. Hence, it appears that the rise
of China on the global scale provides an avenue for MENA autocrats to strengthen their
rule.
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 71

Research hypotheses
Against this backdrop, I examine the AR proposition in the case of the el-Sisi
government in Egypt – described by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (2020)
Transformation Index as a hardline autocracy. Indeed, following the 2013 coup,
the regime adopted authoritarian practices to control political life in the country.
Amir Hamzawy (2019) noted that the regime was able to establish its grip on society
by changing the public’s views of democracy through deploying an authoritarian
discourse “which depicts the democratic uprising of 2011 and the ensuing political
changes – or, in the regime’s language, the ‘occurrences’ – as harmful events whose
repetition would only inflict further damage on the country” (167). Hence, I look
into whether the Egyptian state narrative of China endorses authoritarian practices
discursively. It is important to mention here that I will not investigate whether such
narratives are translated into authoritarian policies, which would require different
theoretical tools and another set of data.
In this research, I use the Strategic Narratives theory by Alister Miskimmon et al.
(2013) to analyse how the process of AR occurs. This theory looks at narratives as
methods of persuasion and influence that political actors employ to get people to do
things they would not otherwise do. Therefore, they “are representations of a sequence
of events and identities, a communicative tool through which political actors – usually
elites – attempt to give determined meaning to past, present, and future in order to
achieve political objectives” (7). Narratives are also tools for political elites “to extend
their influence, manage expectations, and change the discursive environment in which
they operate” (3). Through the media, the political elites construct these ‘strategic’
narratives, first to show who they are, “what characterizes them, what attributes they
possess, what actions they take, and what motivates them”, and to shape the behaviour
of others (32).
Using this theory, I qualitatively examine: (i) how these narratives describe the
international system within which China and Egypt exist; (ii) how state media narrate
the characteristics of Egypt, its historical path and its identity in relation to other states,
both rivals and allies (that is, identity narratives); finally, and based on (i) and (ii),
I examine (iii) the policy narrative that is constructed by the Egyptian state media
regarding the Chinese authoritarian system of governance.
Based on these three elements, I propose two hypotheses:

H1. If the state narrative categorises China as a fair world power and Egypt as a mid-level
power within the international system, then it is logical for the Egyptian regime and
political elite to build a narrative centred on China taking a lead in the direction of the
global economy, development and security and in ending the unfair world system, thus
helping Egypt maintain its sovereignty and independence.

H2. If the state narrative focuses on China’s historical path and strong leadership,
then the Egyptian regime and political elite will advocate following China’s develop­
ment experience and support el-Sisi’s policies to preserve Egypt’s identity and achieve
order.
72 A. RASHEED

Sources and data

To test these hypotheses, the main sources I focus on are the state and pro-state news­
papers, or what can be called the agenda-setting media as they “set a framework within
which others operate” (Chomsky 1997). In Egypt, because of the failure of political
reforms following the Arab Uprisings, media and major newspapers are in the hands
of the old guard. Hence, media “organs that had proved crucial to the uprisings
degenerated with dismaying rapidity into highly partisan platforms serving state autho­
rities or political factions” (Lynch 2015, 90).
In this article, I focus on four main newspapers, al-Ahram, Akhbar al-Youm and al-
Gomhuria, which are owned by the state, along with the pro-regime Youm7 (Media
Ownership Monitor 2021). These newspapers are arguably effective channels through
which the regime can shape public opinion about strategic issues such as Sino-Egyptian
relations, especially given that they publish online and have social media accounts.
Additionally, these newspapers reflect the government’s political agenda. One could
safely argue that nothing is published in these newspapers without the approval of the
intelligence and/or the government. By decoding these materials, I explore qualitatively
the forms and characteristics of the state narratives that are built around China.
Using MAXQDA content-analysis software, I surveyed and compared over 350
articles published between 2014 and 2021 that talk only about China. The selection of
the articles was based on the following search keywords: ‘China’ and/or ‘Chinese’ and/or
‘Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’ and/or ‘Sino-Egyptian relations’. To ensure the internal
validity of the data, I selected these op-ed articles based on their title regardless of the
content or argument made.1

Sino-Egyptian relations
The wave of the Arab Uprisings reached Cairo in late January 2011. The demonstrations
that took place in Tahrir Square at the heart of Cairo were the largest in the history of the
country, thanks to social media and satellite TV channels. President Mubarak – the
fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011 – had already prepared his son, Gamal
Mubarak, a banker trained in the West, to succeed him. Gamal was unfamiliar with the
military institution, and there was a fear that he would privatise the latter’s commercial
enterprises. Hence, rather than trusting “Gamal’s promises that he would continue his
father’s policies, the generals decided to take matters into their own hands and manage
the succession themselves” (Rutherford 2017, xi). They removed Mubarak from power
and formed a temporary junta regime in the country.
The collapse of Mubarak’s regime caused a major change in Egypt’s foreign policy.
In particular, Sino-Egyptian relations witnessed a strategic transformation. The credit
for such transformation goes to President Mohamed Morsi (30 June 2012-3 July 2013),
the first democratically elected president of the country after nearly four decades of
Mubarak’s rule. Morsi’s move was pragmatic; indeed, his party, the Muslim

1
To be sure, state media are generally not attractive in the age of social media and talk shows. This is especially true in
Egypt, where the rate of illiteracy was at 24.6 per cent in 2019 (Daily News Egypt 2020). However, in this article, I look
into whether the el-Sisi government constructs authoritarian ideas and policies discursively. This is why the state media
can be the best place to investigate AR.
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 73

Brotherhood, overlooked the oppressive measures of the Chinese government against

China’s Muslim minorities. In this regard, Anoushivaran Ehteshami and Niv Horesh
(2019) argued that President Morsi “reached out to China perhaps because there was
even greater concern in the West about his religious leanings” (104). Before the Arab
Uprisings, there had been concern among Egyptians that China would not continue its
economic relations with Egypt because of the security situation, but the Chinese
Ambassador to Egypt, Sung Aiguo, affirmed that China would support any political
transition in Egypt and that Chinese companies would not leave the country. As news
spread of Morsi’s visit to China, hopes for a prosperous Egypt ran high. President
Morsi did not wait long. On 28 August 2012, he visited China accompanied by seven
of his ministers and nearly 80 Egyptian businessmen. Morsi’s move was seen as
reminiscent of President Gamal Nasser’s positive approach towards China following
the Bandung Non-Alignment conference in 1955. This time, however, Sino-Egyptian
relations exceeded the passive solidarity concerning world politics’ issues of the Cold
War period, reaching the level of an active strategic partnership. The two signed
agreements on trade, investment, agriculture, tourism, communication and the
environment.
Following a series of anti-government demonstrations in Tahrir square and other parts
of the country, the then Army Chief of Staff, General el-Sisi, forced President Morsi out of
office in Summer 2013. El-Sisi was elected the country’s sixth president in 2014. The change
of the government, however, did not change Egypt’s relations with China. In fact, in
December 2014, China and Egypt upgraded their bilateral relations to a “comprehensive
strategic partnership” (Tiezzi 2014). This strategic partnership can be seen as revenge
against the US for its rejection of the military coup against a democratically elected
government. Thus, el-Sisi’s legitimacy – at least among the anti-Muslim Brotherhood
forces, namely the old guard and traditional political elites – seemed to be based on an anti-
US stand, fuelled by the US position against the coup, which damaged US-Egyptian
relations. Ironically, though, Egypt remains the third-largest recipient of US assistance
(Concern Worldwide US 2021).
President el-Sisi visited China several times, and repeatedly showed his admiration for
the Chinese experience of development. In 2016, he told Chinese Xinhua News Agency;
“Egypt is interested in benefiting from China’s pioneering experience in various fields,
including the development of local administration, administrative development, e-gov­
ernment, the development of the administrative apparatus of the state, as well as the
development of scientific research activities and the field of communication and infor­
mation technology” (quoted in Ehteshami and Horesh 2019, 105). As of February 2021,
Egypt has signed over 25 bilateral agreements with China. Among the most recent is the
USD 20 billion with the China Fortune Land Development Company (CFLD) to develop
the second phase of the country’s New Administrative Capital east of Cairo. This comes
“on top of a $15 billion agreement by China’s state-owned construction company to
finance 14 government buildings, a zone for trade fairs and a 5,000-seat conference center
that would be the largest in Africa” (Wirtschafter 2016). Equally important, in early
September 2015, President el-Sisi was invited by President Xi Jinping to attend China’s
military parade at Tiananmen Square to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over
Japan during World War II. El-Sisi headed a delegation of over 80 Egyptian officers and
74 A. RASHEED

was the only Middle Eastern leader to attend the ceremony. The visit was described as
a reflection of the strong and special ties between China and Egypt (Ehteshami and
Horesh 2019).
Although Egypt represents “less than five percent of China’s trade with MENA
countries and only one of almost 140 countries to have signed an MoU” (El Dahshan
2021), it offers enormous support to China and the BRI. China’s interest in Egypt is
based on the latter’s regional position at the heart of MENA and Africa. One could
expect that China will not remain on the sidelines in the politics of the region (Ghiselli
and Morgan 2021). Hence, Egypt can be an important player in the future calculations
of the balance of power and issues of peace and development in MENA and Africa.
The results of the Sino-Egyptian partnership are already reflected in trade. In
October 2020, the Chinese Embassy in Cairo revealed that China-Egypt trade reached
“6.69 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2020, up 2.7 percent year-on-year” (Xinhua
News Agency 2020). Indeed, China is by far the main trade partner for Egypt (OEC
2021).

AR in Egypt: empirical evidence from state media

China: the new and fair global power
The Egyptian government sees China’s rise on the global scale as an opportunity to
maintain Egypt’s sovereignty, end the unfair world order dominated by the US and
achieve decoloniality. Moreover, the Egyptian political elite has repeatedly depicted
Egypt as a mid-level power that needs strong leadership such as el-Sisi’s to restore its
position in the global order and end injustice at the systemic level. Within this
narrative, China’s modernisation experience and the Sino-Egyptian partnership are
seen as successful tools to achieve growth, decoloniality and independence. Although
empirical research suggests that China is not a status-quo nor a revisionist power, but
something in between (Jones 2018), the Egyptian government depicts the Sino-
Egyptian partnership as vengeance for years of Western domination of the order.
Indeed, and as MENA countries continue to have a troubled relationship with the
world order (Salem 2018), this kind of state discourse originates from a structural
problem of the world order narrative. The dominant narrative of world order reflects
the conceptually Western- and state-centric utilitarian order, which has traditionally
excluded or given an obscure role to non-Western states and societies (Acharya 2018;
Phillips and Reus-Smit 2020).
The Egyptian government and political elite view China as a superpower with civilisa­
tional heritage and a non-interventionist agenda. Since the end of World War II and the
Bandung Conference of 1955, the South-South interaction between East and West Asia
was believed to be horizontal and never hierarchal. It was based on mutual benefit and
recognition among the Asian countries. Hence, the Egyptian government believes that
the BRI is a continuation of the ancient Silk Road that enabled civilisational ideas and
commodities exchange. This narrative is also reflected in President Xi’s discourse
(Garlick 2020). For its part, China views the MENA countries as natural partners as
they both seek to overcome the consequences of the global political economy dominated
by the Western powers.
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 75

Furthermore, narratives from state-owned newspapers reveal a distinctive promotion

of a particular form of globality, international political economy and identity. The state
narrative supports a multipolar world order based on fairness, not the liberal hegemony
of the Western powers and their armada of international financial institutions (IFIs).
Moreover, the Egyptian elite has persistently diffused narratives of the retreat of what it
describes as an ‘unjust’ liberal order where Egypt plays a peripheral role to its domestic
audiences. Thus, in a multipolar order where China operates as a superpower, Egypt can
finally realise its role in the international system. Within this discourse, the government
has been promoting a unique Egyptian identity around the great civilisational past that
President el-Sisi projects for the country. For example, former Prime Minister of Egypt
Essam Sharaf delivered a lecture in Hubei in July 2018 – covered by the al-Ahram
newspaper – where he highlighted the necessity for Sino-Egypt cooperation in the
“anarchical and unfair” world order that is based on the self-interests of the great powers,
pointing at the Western powers. He argued that the BRI can play a pivotal role in
realising a new and fair world order and replacing what he described as “fierce selfish
globalisation”. The BRI reflects two thousand years of Chinese-Egyptian relations, Essam
continued; therefore, “I have no doubt that the Belt and Road or New Silk Road initiative
[. . .] can play a pivotal role in realising the dream of a new world – through the
partnership between our profound civilisations” (Jaba’Allah 2018b). Such identity dis­
course does not promote authoritarian practices directly. However, it boosts el-Sisi’s
legitimacy and implicitly depicts him as a new Pharaoh of Egypt. As a result, it legitimises
the authoritarian practices of his regime – because they are portrayed as necessary to
revive Egypt and for it to acquire an influential position in world politics that reflects its
rich civilisation.
The non-interventionist foreign policy of China made the country attractive in the
eyes of the Egyptian elite. The latter developed resentful views following President
Obama’s criticism of the July 2013 coup, which toppled the democratically elected
President Morsi. For instance, Ahmed al-Sayyed al-Najjar (2015), the former
Chairman of the al-Ahram Foundation, argued that China’s respect for the sover­
eignty of states meets Egypt’s focus on independence following the January 2011 and
June 2013 revolutions, because China is integrated into the global environment and
focuses “on strengthening relations with countries that respect China’s sovereignty,
the choices of its people, and the rules of justice and equality in international
relations” (ibid). Thomas Demmelhuber (2019) argued that Sino-Egyptian relations
should be seen as a hedging strategy, especially given that Egypt is still one of the top
beneficiaries of US foreign aid. These kinds of state discourses, however, show that,
at least to some extent, el-Sisi is trying to limit the US influence in Egypt that he
inherited from Mubarak’s regime. There is also a deliberate pro-Chinese narrative in
Arabic addressed to Egyptian audiences to shape their perception of the look-east
policy of Egypt. These narratives boost el-Sisi’s legitimacy as he is presented as the
master of the strategic partnership with China. Amro Adib, one of the most famous
Egyptian tv anchors, once said, “el-Sisi wants to turn Egypt into another China”,
praising the government achievements in a televised program (Adib 2017). As
mentioned earlier, however, it was President Morsi, not el-Sisi, who redirected
Egypt’s policy towards China.
76 A. RASHEED

The Egyptian elite added a pan-Arab flavour to its narrative on the world order and
China. For example, a regular columnist at al-Ahram linked the Sino-Egyptian strategic
partnership to the regional crises, particularly the Israel-Palestine conflict by referring to
the US pro-Israel policy and China’s supportive attitude to Arab issues (Salim 2014). In
an op-ed titled “2018: The Year of the Collapse of the American Unipolar Order”, an
Egyptian journalist argued that President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital
of Israel, and his opposition to changing the legal status of the city, is an indication of the
end of what he described as the “stupid, dominative and ugly” unipolar world order
(Jaba’Allah 2018a).
Against this backdrop, the political elite sees Sino-Egyptian relations also as an
opportunity to support a Palestinian state. This linkage with the pan-Arab cause of
Palestine speaks to the hearts and minds of all the Egyptians, if not all the Arabs.
Indeed, for decades, the pan-Arab issue of Palestine was a source of pride and inspiration
for the Arab public (Barnett 1998). In the same vein, the late professor of Political Science
at Cairo University, Mohammed as-Sayyed Salim (2014), argued that China’s veto in the
United Nations Security Council to protect the integrity of Syria in 2014 and its neutral
approach to solving what he described as the “Arab-Israeli conflict” is a “qualitative shift”
in China’s Middle East policy that is consistent with Egypt’s “independent” foreign policy
after 30 June 2013. Salim was convinced that the Chinese model of development is ideal
for Egypt “to free the country from the Western pressures that threaten Egypt with
‘sanctions’ whenever a disagreement occurs” (ibid.).
Indeed, China has pursued neutrality and non-intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict
since its early years (Schichor 1979). More recently, Beijing expressed its support to the
Arab-Israeli rapprochement in 2020. For example, in August 2020, the Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Zhao Lijian reiterated China’s consistent and clear position on the
Palestinian issue. He told the media that China “welcomes measures that will help
alleviate tension between countries in the Middle East and promote regional peace and
stability” (Chinese Foreign Ministry 2020).

A partner working for mutual benefit

The narrative promoted by the Egyptian government and political elite of the post-1990
unipolar global order includes an international political economy aspect, whereby
Western powers, through IFIs, control processes of globalisation and exercise hegemony
over Global South countries, which has widened the inequality gap among nations. In
this sense, according to the Egyptian state media, the general mode of the US-dominated
liberal order is yet a continuity to Western imperialism. Indeed, China has succeeded in
breaking the IFI’s prerequisites of political reform in return for loans. In the words of
James M. Dorsey (2019, 2), “China shies away from subverting governments, arguing
instead that it can assist them in ways that the United States or the Soviet Union in the
past cannot”. The BRI Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) offers no conditional
loans and does not require the introduction of free-market practices, unlike other IFI
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 77

Equally important, the Chinese narrative that China’s authorities deploy for their BRI
partners is important. While Western powers have portrayed the MENA region as
a problem for decades, China sees it as an opportunity. Comparatively, the MENA
countries have often been depicted in negative terms by the Western powers (Said 1978).
For its part, official state discourse in Egypt depicts China as a Global South super­
power with a stable economy that allows it to compete with Western companies in a non-
exploitative way. Therefore, China is welcomed in Egypt, not only because of its success­
ful development experience or non-interventionist foreign policy, but because it offers
new opportunities to the region – including a horizontal partnership based on mutual
respect and recognition. In doing so, China, paradoxically, is depicted as offering
a chance for a more democratic, fair and equal world order.
For example, economic expert Walid Gaballah, a member of the Egyptian
Association for Political Economy, told Xinhua News Agency in an interview that
“when international cooperation is based on the win-win rule, you will not find
opponents in such cooperation, that is the case with the BRI” (China Daily 2020).
Norhan al-Sheikh (2013), a member of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Relations
and Professor of International Relations at Cairo University, remarked on the fair­
ness of China as a trade partner and contended that Beijing treats the countries of
the region with equality and sincerity and does not impose its values or style of
development on others. She emphasised that China provides only suggestions, not
conditions, “as it happens between friend and friend” (ibid.). In her words, China
participates “strongly and effectively in the economic and development projects for
the countries of the region without exception, thus achieving mutual benefit and
a win for all”. She ended her article by asserting that it “is remarkable that China
believes that it cannot achieve real development without achieving the development
of its partners” (ibid). Indeed, here the Western approach of a neoliberal model of
development is seen as colonial and exploitative. China, on the other hand, is seen as
a fair and unique partner.
Most importantly, much of the Egyptian narrative of China is on how the country
became a major power in the world economy without losing its identity and culture.
These narratives are arguably employed purposefully to follow China’s path of develop­
ment, which would supposedly allow Egypt to preserve its culture and distinct Arab and
African identity.

The sinicisation of Islam in Egypt

One of the striking Egyptian government’s narratives of China is romanticising the
Chinese model of Islam and China’s counter-terrorism approach. This move is argu­
ably aimed at masking el-Sisi’s repressive measures against the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt following the 2013 coup. In addition, the Egyptian and Chinese regimes hold
similar views on terrorism: it is a development failure, hence economic development is
the solution. For example, during a meeting on counter-extremism in China’s
Chengdu region in August 2017 – in which Shawki Allam, the Grand Mufti of
Egypt, participated – Deng Li, Director-General of the Department of West Asian
and North African Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that extremism is
a developmental failure (Xinhua News Agency 2017). On the same occasion, Huang
78 A. RASHEED

Hui, Director of the Arabic Department at the University of International Business and
Economics in Beijing, argued that “unemployment and poverty have deprived young
people of dignity and hope, which must be addressed so that terrorism does not draw
them in” (ibid.).
In November 2019, President el-Sisi received Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference, and reaffirmed that “development and chan­
ging reality are the best ways to combat extremist ideology, along with security efforts”
(al-Dostor 2019). Such a narrative legitimises China’s human rights violations against the
Hui Muslim minority.
While the development argument is relevant, extremism, especially religious extre­
mism, can be a result of a multitude of factors, such as discrimination (Koomen and
van der Pligt 2016) and martyrdom motives (Juergensmeyer 2017). Thus, one can fairly
argue that terrorism is not a only development failure. In fact, authoritarian practices
often lead to radicalisation (UNDP 2017; Fontan 2007). The very case of Uyghurs in
China is an example. Many Uyghurs joined the Islamic State (IS) organisation in Syria,
aiming at China. An Uyghur told AP: “We didn’t care how the fighting went or who
Assad was [. . . we] just wanted to learn how to use the weapons and then go back to
China” (Shih 2017).
Pro-regime newspapers in Egypt explicitly promote authoritarian policies in dealing
with the government’s foes, namely the Muslim Brotherhood. For example, the Deputy
Editor of al-Ahram, Tariq al-Sinoti (2019), described the Chinese approach of opening
so-called “rehabilitation centres” in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region as “the most
effective to counter Islamic extremism”, hinting that Egypt needs to do the same to
tackle extremism in the country. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood too – which
was indeed declared a terrorist organisation by the junta government in
December 2013. One could argue that this could explain why President el-Sisi admires
the Chinese model of governance as it legitimises his authoritarian policies in the
country. More recently, in July 2020, Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian Foreign Minister,
called his Chinese counterpart to express Egypt’s support for China in its handling of
the demonstrations in Hong Kong. Shoukry said that “Egypt firmly supports China’s
stance on the Hong Kong issue and opposes interference in Chinese internal affairs”
(Jaba’Allah 2020).
Both Egypt and China seem not only to have instrumentalised the US narrative of
the ‘war on terror’ to cover domestic human rights violations, but even to go beyond it
to undermine the Western leadership. For example, the al-Ahram newspaper
(Jaba’Allah 2019) interviewed Jiang Jianguo, the Director of the Chinese State
Council Information Office. Jiang claimed that the Communist Party adheres to non-
discrimination and ensures freedom of belief, and that China has achieved peaceful
coexistence. To prove his claim, he said that China is one of the most stable countries
in the world, and this cannot be achieved without the peaceful coexistence of nation­
alities and religions. Drawing an analogy between the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
and the Uyghurs in China, the interviewer asked Jiang why Western media always
distort the image of China and attack it, and Egypt suffers from this maltreatment too.
Jiang answered that some European and American countries “have a feeling of super­
iority over other countries” and perpetuate prejudices. To offer a platform for justifica­
tion and defence, the journalist asked why China established training centres in
 THE INTERNATIONAL SPECTATOR 79

Xinjiang to combat terrorism. Jiang claimed that the local government has adopted
a policy of “combating and preventing” terrorism together, which takes into account
“the balance between imposing penalties for crimes and protecting human rights”
(ibid.).

Covid-19: the autocrats’ narrative

China’s draconian and fast approach to control the spread of Covid-19 – unlike the slow
and indecisive response of many democracies – seemed to prove the effectiveness of
authoritarianism in times of pandemics. While the world was watching the US admin­
istration’s politicisation of social distancing measures and mask-wearing, the Chinese
authorities were mitigating the pandemic and normalising the situation in the country,
including in Wuhan, where the pandemic broke out. In March 2020, the Chinese state
Council inter-agency task force on Covid-19 announced that “no new indigenous cases
had been reported for at least 14 consecutive days in 21 provinces, and no such cases had
been seen in six other provinces for over a week” (NewsIn Asia 2020). Authoritarians,
therefore, seemed to score a point with regard to how they can achieve in-group cohesion
and overcome non-compliance (Feldman 2003; Adorno et al. 1950).
The Communist Party of China (CPC) turned Covid-19 into an opportunity by
politicising China’s success in managing the crisis and depicting democracies as ineffi­
cient (Rolland 2021). This helped el-Sisi and the Egyptian political elite to paint a positive
picture of China’s authoritarian system in mitigating emergencies. The official Egyptian
narrative of China depicts the CPC leadership style and centralised power as the most
successful forms of governance to mitigate pandemics. In this narrative, China’s success
in mitigating the pandemic is not a surprise, but a ‘usual’ victory. For example, following
the Chinese announcement of the development of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines,
one Egyptian commentator wrote in Akhbar al Youm (Dowidar 2020), “the pandemic
started in China and ends there”. China demonstrated again its supremacy, not only in
the industrial and economic fields, but in the pharmaceutical industry and pandemic
management too, he added. In a similar vein, Samir Rajab, an Egyptian journalist who
had ties with Mubarak’s regime, wrote an article claiming that Egypt defeated the virus
because of the wise policies of el-Sisi. The article caused a wave of satirical comments on
social media platforms. In it, Rajab claimed that el-Sisi’s policy “is clearly defined and
away from internal or external influences, unlike America, whose partisan conflict has
jeopardised its existence”. He ended the article by saying that el-Sisi’s vision is based on
science, unity, altruism and sacrifice for the sake of the collective good (Rajab 2021).
The effectiveness of authoritarianism in mitigating crises is exaggerated in these
narratives. While China was able to control the initial phase of the pandemic, there are
other examples where authoritarians were incapable of dealing with the pandemic, such
as Russia and Iran (Niblett and Vinjamuri 2020). Also, several democracies have been
successful in managing the initial phase of the pandemic – including some of China’s
neighbouring countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and New Zealand.
Nonetheless, China’s Covid-19 ‘vaccine diplomacy’– which manifested in providing
aid, tracing and testing support and vaccines at affordable prices to developing countries –
effectively encourages South-South partnerships (The Financial Times 2020).
80 A. RASHEED

Conclusion
Authoritarian Reinforcement in Egypt is built discursively around four main themes: the
fairness of China as an ally with a civilisational heritage; the Chinese principle of mutual
benefit; China’s successful counter-terrorism policies; and the effectiveness of author­
itarianism in mitigating pandemics. Thus, H1 is supported as the Egyptian regime and
political elite have repeatedly advocated for China to take a lead in the global economy,
development and security, and to end the unfair world system, which helps maintain
Egypt’s sovereignty. H2 is also supported since the Egyptian regime also advocates for
adopting China’s development path to preserve the country’s identity and achieve social
and political order.
As our analysis suggests, the Sino-Egyptian strategic partnership is therefore
a starting point for legitimising authoritarianism discursively in Egypt. While the
partnership with China is without doubt a means for Egypt to try to achieve develop­
ment, the narratives of the success of China and its style of governance in mitigating
pandemics and eradicating poverty are also powerful tools to gain the favour of the
public and justify authoritarian measures. Furthermore, the Egyptian regime has
romanticised the Chinese counter-terrorism policies to justify a brutal crackdown on
its domestic foes, the Muslim Brotherhood, even though authoritarian practices them­
selves have proven to fuel radicalisation in society. Finally, while Egypt has capitalised
on the Chinese success in mitigating the Covid-19 crisis, the narrative of this success
has been exaggerated and aimed at presenting authoritarianism as useful for public
good and order.

Acknowledgments
This research would not have been possible without the exceptional support of Oliver
Schlumberger at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and Anoush Ehteshami at Durham
University. I would also like to thank Marie Gillespie at Open University and Ben O’Loughlin at
Royal Holloway, who looked over the transcriptions and answered numerous questions about the
theoretical framework, as well as my wife and colleague Juline Beaujouan at Edinburgh University,
for her comments and support throughout the writing of this paper. Finally, I am grateful to the
anonymous peer reviewers for their insightful comments.

Notes on contributor
Amjed Rasheed is a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science (IPS) at Eberhard Karls
University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. He is a Fellow at the School of Government and
International Affairs at Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom, and a Senior Researcher at
Open Think Tank, Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

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