China's efforts have played a role internationally

Xi Jinping: The Governance of China 

I arrived October last year, and of course, ever since it has been an amazing journey, not only inBeijing, but in China in general. China has a lot of impressive landscape, massive modernization, hardworking people, rich cuisine, rich culture, diversity, wine, with unity. So for any may man that alone and ambassador, of course, it offers an amazing experience, the unique one.

The friendship is good to test when there are challenges, and when there are problems. And when there is, they need to stand and to extend the hand of friendship and the hand of assistance and express sympathies and express solidarity. And this has been manifested recently. I'm not going to go back. But just recently, when we have the pandemic, and when there are so many states, we've seen so many selfish practices in some states to keep the vaccines to themselves, to keep care only about the applicants of their own people.

Whereas, in fact, China stood as a bright example of extending his friendship to developing the world, especially in our part of the world in Africa, Egypt. I consider the Belt and Road Initiative as one of the foremost development initiatives put forth recently in our contemporary history without any situation and records existence have.

As we now mark the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative launched by President Xi Jinping, we can really take pride in being one of Egypt, being one of the earlier hearings, members of this initiative. I don't know other countriesof course. As you know, the Belt and Road Initiative focuses on development, on connectivity, on shared benefits. And these are all principles that we all subscribed.

Egypt is privileged with a strategic location. Egypt lies at the crossroads of the continents, of the Asian continent. And we also have part of our that delta issues lies in Asia, by the way, African and the European continent. So Egypt lies at the very heart of the world.

It's instrumental in being a connector, being taken part of this connectivity theBelt and Road Initiative portrays and especially the maritime Belt and Road, which is important to connect ports to develop all the trade and infrastructure along with it.

Egypt has benefited from this initiative by developing our ports, by developing our some of the industrial areas along the swiss canada zone, by addressing our infrastructure needs. We have now a massive infrastructure overhaul of the whole Egyptian territory, including the smart cities in the new administrative capital that is being built also with the Chinese partners, with the focus on renewable energy that we are all keen to have a green transition and climate action in place.

So all these emphasis has been part of our not only bilateral exchanges with China, but also within the Belt and Road Initiative with China and the other member states of this very very valuable initiative.

Our prime minister participated in the recent Belt and Road Forum in Beijing to cooperate the intense anniversary along with a very high-level delegation. We chose how keen we are partaking in this initiative and contribute meaningfully to a success.

Well, the potentials are enormous and they are all aligned with our national priorities. We have a vision of Egyptian development, which is Egypt Vision 2030.

And it focuses on many priorities that you mentioned, creating economy, infrastructure, and boosting public health and high quality education, digital digitalization of our infrastructure or economy, and renewable energy, taking almost 40 % of ournational initial requirements by 2030, hopefully. So all these projects are very well attuned and very well aligned with the Belt and Road Initiative and our bilateral exchanges with China and other partners in the world.

I'm speaking from the perspective of the Egyptian ambassador to China. And during this year, I have seen many valuable exchanges to put all these projects into action, to find a bible, studies, expertise, and training within the very solid foundations of friendship and goodwill. Many of those projects are coming to light. And this represents for me a personal delight. We hope to build on that to generate more development, sustainable development, and also to give the Chinese investors an enabling climate conducive climate to prosper, to use Egypt not only as a market, but a gateway to Africa, a gateway to the Middle East, to Southern Europe.

And this serves as a very good example of South-South and even South-North cooperation. Yes, it's a question that really comes to my mind when I set my foot in the Chinese territory Chinese land.

How this enormous country, enormous population, the biggest population in the world, how has it come to develop this rapidly while maintaining it's tradition and preserving, as you rightly said, this unique way of modernization and development at the same time.

And I've heard so many arguments from most Chinese observers, from most observers from different walks of life. And maybe I could come with my own conclusion, perhaps not quite yet, because I haven't stayed here long enough.

I have seen some provinces in China and I've seen how they were before like 30 years ago and how they are feeling how they are doing now. And of course records don't lie and pictures don't lie. I've seen how people have prospered, how absolute poverty has been alleviated, has been eradicated. 

So if I am to commend some aspects of this wonderful experience, I would say you have focused on infrastructure, boosting infrastructure, boosting connectivity between different Chinese provinces, high-speed trains, impressive roads, how agriculture in one province is rapidly transferred to near province, how energy from one area can be transferred to an area, how prosperity from the east, the traditionally prosperous eastern towns and eastern provinces have chicken was spilt spilled over to the western provinces, how you have managed to industrialized rapidly.

We are now in Egypt evaluating upon a very ambitious infrastructure projects in roads, in railways, high-speed railways, much in China, in subways, smart cities, and boosting our fiber optics, network, and broadband use. Many of these aspects are now recognized as recipesfor modernization.

Most of our people are young and they are eager to have good education. I totally agree with you that culture and people-to-people exchange play a fundamental role in bringing people together in understanding one another. Physical distance can sometimes be an impediment to know one another.

And as I said, when you read about the country, read about his culture, his history, it is not like when you visit this country and interact with people. It goes for China, it goes for Nigeria as I said before, it goes in Egypt, it goes for every culture and I think especially for young people.

So we have now a very successful program of Arabic teaching for Chinese students and also the Confucius Institutes in Asia and Africa play a very good part in teaching Chinese to Egyptian and African Arab students. Egypt is one of the, if not the first Arab and African country to host Chinese teaching programs in the 1850s.

Author ：Assem Hanafi