By Shannon Tiezzi
A planned trip in 2015 was scuttled due to regional tensions. Will Xi’s 2016 Middle East tour share the same fate?
For all his globe-trotting since assuming the Chinese presidency in March 2013, there’s one part of the world Xi Jinping has yet to visit: the Middle East. That delay has been taken as an indication that China still isn’t – and perhaps doesn’t want to be – a major player in the region. But now that oversight may be about to change. Though there’s no confirmation from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, both Egypt and Iran are reporting that Xi will be visiting in late January.
Xi was originally planning to head to the Middle East in April 2015, to visit Egypt and Saudi Arabia as part of a larger tour that would also include stops in Indonesia and Pakistan. But the Middle East leg of the trip was scrapped, apparently because China wanted to avoid being seen as supporting Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen, which target Iranian-backed fighters.
If the trip takes place as reported, it means Xi has chosen the Middle East his first foreign destination in 2016 – a status generally used to indicate China’s focus on a particular region or country. By comparison, Xi’s first trips abroad in 2013 and 2014 were both to Russia, and his first overseas visit in 2015 was to Pakistan (though originally the Middle East would have been included on that larger trip abroad).
According to Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zaid, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to prepare for Xi’s upcoming visit, which is scheduled for January 20-22. It will be the first visit to Egypt by a Chinese foreign leader in 12 years, Zaid said. Previous Chinese Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao both visited Egypt, Jiang in 2000 and Hu in 2004.
Read the full story at The Diplomat