On the Sino-Egyptian Geo-Relations in the Perspective of the Belt and Road——Based on Event Data Analysis

Abstract Egypt has an important geostrategic position as it is located in the three circles of Arab world, African continent and Islamic world simultaneously. Egypt is the key region of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with leading and radiating effects on Africa and West Asia. The study on Sino-Egyptian geo-relations is of great significance for promoting the construction of the BRI. This paper attempted to explore the evolution process and driving mechanism of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations during 2000–2021 based on event data analysis to explore the path of future development. The results indicate that: (1) the bilateral geo-relations between China and Egypt show an overall fluctuating upward trend, i.e., the geo-relations were closer in the later part of the study period than in the earlier period; the highest peaks of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations in all four time periods were generated by the influence of the same type of event, i.e., the exchange of visits between the top state leaders of China and Egypt. (2) geopolitics, geo-economy and geo-culture are the driving forces and intrinsic mechanisms of the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations. Among them, geopolitics is the pioneering element, geo-economy is the significant factor, and geo-culture is the important complement.


Introduction
Egypt, which is located in three circles simultaneously, the Arab world, the African continent, and the Islamic world, has been receiving attention from all over the world, especially from various major powers due to its pivotal geostrategic position (Forshaw, 2019;Sharp, 2011). During the Cold War, Egypt was the focus of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Nowadays, the major powers are still committed to establishing friendly relations and maintaining good cooperation with Egypt (Chen, 2011). The reason why Egypt has such significant influence lies in its special geographical location. The Suez Canal is a major waterway connecting the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. After thousands of years of accumulation, Sino-Egyptian relations are historic and unique. (Chen & Wang, 2002). Egypt was the first African and Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with New China. Since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations on 30 May 1956, China and Egypt have been supporting each other, maintaining a tacit cooperation relationship in geopolitical, geo-economic, and geo-cultural fields, and gradually forming a cooperation pattern dominated by energy resources (Bazanova et al., 2018;Scott, 2015;Yu, 2016). Since entering the 21st century, Sino-Egyptian bilateral relations have been continuously deepened. With the establishment of the Sino-Arab States Cooperation Forum(CASCF) and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation(FOCAC) as well as the establishment of the Sino-Arab and Sino-Egyptian comprehensive strategic partnership, the friendly and cooperative relations between China and Egypt have entered a new stage of comprehensive and stable development, and the bilateral geo-relations have made significant development. The comprehensive deepening of bilateral relations between China and Egypt has not only promoted cooperation between the two countries, but also effectively promoted the development of multilateral cooperation between China, African and Arab countries (An, 2010a;Rapanyane, 2021). In the layout of the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Egypt, as a country straddling North Africa and West Asia, plays a leading and radiating role in Africa and West Asia ( Figure. 1). Therefore, a systematic review of the development of Sino-Egyptian georelations since the 21st century, an analysis of the interactive changes in Sino-Egyptian relations, and an analysis of the evolution mechanism of bilateral geo-relations and the future development path, are of great practical significance for both sides to further enhance Sino-Egyptian georelations, promote the implementation of the BRI, adjust bilateral policies, and to implement new geopolitical strategies.
The existing studies on the Sino-Egyptian geo-relations have focused on both geopolitical and geoeconomic relations. Egypt is the starting point of China's geopolitical cooperation with Africa and the Middle East. In terms of geopolitical (An, 2010a(An, , 2010b and (Yu, 2016(Yu, , 2021b reviewed the 60-year history of bilateral diplomatic relations, sorted out the development of geopolitical relations between China and Egypt since the establishment of diplomatic relations, and looked into the future, believing that the continuation of China-Egypt comprehensive strategic cooperation has a leading role in deepening China's diplomacy with the Middle East and Africa, promoting the BRI construction, and exploring the governance of international and regional issues; it is even more important for China and Egypt to share their experience in governance and promote the diplomacy of the great powers in the Middle East with Chinese characteristics, which should not be underestimated. (Rasheed, 2022) analyzed that the Al-Sisi regime has been deploying a persuasive narrative on China, its development experience and the BRI to reinforce authoritarianism discursively under the pretext of preserving the state's sovereignty and achieving progress and the public good. (Adawi & He, 2020;Tang, 2021) both pointed out that the establishment of CASCF and FOCAC has provided a new framework and mechanism for geopolitical cooperation between China and the wider Arab world, including Egypt. The establishment of the Sino-Egyptian comprehensive strategic partnership, on the other hand, has brought about a new geopolitical landscape and further deepened the traditional friendship and political mutual trust between the two countries. (Ehteshami & Horesh, 2020) analyzed Egypt-China relations by examining Media outlets such as al-Ahram and Chinese in official media and scholarly literature in both countries and argued that these two countries experienced a rapid deepening of mutual strategic relations, which significantly contributes to the emerging literature on China's contemporary interactions with the Middle East. In addition, (Wang, 2006;Lu, 2018;Lao, 2019;Chaziza, 2021;Fulton, 2022) summarized the development process of Sino-Egyptian geopolitical relations as well as the content of geopolitical cooperation, and proposed countermeasures to strengthen cooperation. Notably, (Shou & He, 2021) analyzed the cooperative relationship between China and Middle Eastern countries under the COVID-19 epidemic and found that although Western countries represented by the United States have continuously discredited China in an attempt to influence China's image and inter-state relations in the Middle East since the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the relationship between China and Egypt has been strengthened instead.
In terms of geo-economic relations, Egypt, located along the Maritime Silk Road, is a natural partner for the BRI construction. The development strategy of Egypt's Economic Revitalization Plan is highly compatible with China's Belt and Road Initiative and is deeply dovetailed with it. Together, China and Egypt have proposed development plans for the Suez Canal Corridor, the construction of the central business district of the new administrative capital, the construction of renewable energy, etc., sharing good opportunities for development (Elmaghraby, 2020;Sun & Zhang, 2018). Selim & Moaaz (2021) believed that the Belt and Road Initiative and the Suez Canal Area Development Project will not only give a huge boost to Sino-Egyptian economic relations, but also provide more investment and trade opportunities in international trade. However, whereas the BRI project between China and Egypt is steadily advancing, some problems and challenges have also emerged. (Cao, 2015;Wang et al., 2017;Wang & Li, 2019) combed through the bilateral economic and trade situation before and after the establishment of the Sino-Egyptian comprehensive strategic partnership and found that since the Arab upheaval, Egypt has experienced a deteriorating domestic investment environment, insufficient national production and consumption capacity, and a large economic and trade deficit, which have brought certain negative impacts on bilateral cooperation. (Sun, 2019) conducted an empirical analysis using the trade integration index as well as the revealed comparative advantage index, and reached the same conclusion. In addition to expanding the scale of bilateral economic cooperation, he also suggested establishing a Sino-Egyptian economic community and seizing the opportunities arising from the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to consolidate trade cooperation relations. On the whole, although there exist many problems in the bilateral economy and trade between China and Egypt, the prospects for the development of bilateral economic and trade relations are still very bright (Gadallah, 2016;Hatab et al., 2012;Khalifa, 2020).
Throughout the aforementioned literature, studies on Sino-Egyptian relations mainly adopted qualitative comparative analysis and inductive summaries in terms of methodology, with less quantitative analysis. The research perspectives were mainly from politics, economics, international trade, international relations, and history, etc. Few researches adopted a multidisciplinary intersection of economics, international relations, and geopolitics to study the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geopolitical relations. Compared with previous research methods, the event data analysis method is more precise and rigorous, possesses outstanding practical relevance, more realistically reflects the ups and downs, subtle changes in bilateral relations as well as the changing degree of major power relations, with a quantitative prediction accuracy rate of over 70% (Chen, 2010), which is highly reliable (Liu & Yan, 2010). Hence, this research combines the research perspectives of international relations and geopolitics, adopts a quantitative analysis of event data to quantitatively measure the Sino-Egyptian geo-relations during 2000-2021, summarizes the overall patterns and characteristics of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations during the study period, then comprehensively analyzes the evolution process and driving mechanisms of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations since the 21st century, and explores its future development path.

Event data analysis
Event data analysis, which began in the 1960s, is a scientific and quantitative method for judging, measuring, and predicting relations between two countries based on known political events (Qin, 2005;Yan & Zhou, 2004). This methodology decomposes the complex geopolitical relations between countries into different event units, such as alliances, visits, signing agreements, protests, statements, threats, wars, etc., and assigns values to individual events based on certain criteria and then synthesizes them for quantitative analysis (Zhao & Ge, 2019). The bilateral relationship score makes the historical state and changing trajectory of the two countries' relations appear clear and intuitive, which can clearly interpret the characteristics and changing degree of bilateral relations and enhance the sensitivity to changes in bilateral relations (Guo & Wang, 2011;Zhao & Ge, 2019).
Many scholars have used event data analysis method to investigate national bilateral relations (Bloomfield & Moulton, 1997;Davies & Gurr, 1998;Li, 2002;Schrodt & Deborah, 2000;Yan & Zhou, 2004), driving mechanisms of geo-relations (Xiong et al., 2015), geo-security evaluation (Zhao & Ge, 2019), international river security (Zhou et al., 2013), maritime rights disputes (Hu et al., 2014, He, et al., 2015, and urban spatial evolution . However, most of the existing studies are based on the analysis of short time series between countries, while there are still fewer studies on the evolution of geo-relations between countries and regions in long time series, especially on the African region. Based on this, this paper then adopts the event data analysis and refers to the event empowerment criterion of (Yan, 2010;Yan & Zhou, 2004) to analyze and explore the evolution of the Sino-Egyptian geo-relations during 2000-2021.

Event data assignment and standardization
Event data analysis is mainly divided into four steps: (1) Unifying bilateral event sources. (2) Establishing coding system. (3) Selecting event assignment. (4) Standardization and analysis of assignment results ( Figure 2).
Firstly, there is a need to unify the sources of bilateral events. The data and event information publicly available on official authoritative websites such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xinhuanet, Al-Ahram and AI-Goumhouria were screened and categorized to identify the bilateral events of interaction between China and Egypt during 2000-2021 (the results are shown in Table 1 and Figure 3). Then a coding system for event assignment was established. Our study mainly refers to the event assignment criterion established by (Yan & Zhou, 2004) and converts the identified Sino-Egyptian interactive events into numerical scores with the help of fixed assignment table and score calculation method. The last part is the correction and analysis of the assignment results, which will be calculated by adding the quantified score to the previous month's score to achieve the current month's standardized relationship score, so as to obtain the influence of the event (see Table 2). The values of Sino-Egyptian national relations will be constructed through the above steps, and the series will be constructed using Excel and Origin. From this, it is possible to objectively measure the bilateral relations between China and Egypt, judge the time inflection point of major events or policy shifts between the two countries, the intimate and low periods of Sino-Egyptian relations, grasp the changing trend and predict the future trend of national georelations between China and Egypt, etc.
The influence of events on the bilateral relationship score depends on two variables: the events in the bilateral interaction of the current month and the score of the relationship between the two countries in the previous month. Since the initial value is not taken into account when calculating the event score, and the calculation of the monthly score depends on the previous month's score, this leads to endless reverse derivation. Thus, in order to eliminate the difference of the influence of events at different levels of relationship, this study modifies the event score according to equation (1): Where, I indicates the influence score of the event when the bilateral relationship is located at P0; N indicates the absolute value of the changing range of bilateral relationship; P0 indicates the initial value of bilateral relationship at the time of the event; I0 indicates the score of the event in the event score scale. The range of changes in bilateral relations is [-N, N], which is taken as [−9, 9] in this study.

Data source, selection and processing
Data and information on the event were mainly obtained from the official databases of the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China (https://www.fmprc. gov.cn/mfa_chn/), the World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org.cn/country/myanmar), China Customs Statistics (https://www.customs.gov.cn/tabid/400/Default.aspx), People's Daily Online   This research lists the major events in Sino-Egyptian relations during the 21 years from the beginning of the 21st century to the present, with a total of 209 positive events and 0 negative events, using the month as the smallest unit (Table 1).

The evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations
It was statistically revealed that the total number of interactive events between China and Egypt over the period 2000-2021 was 209, with a monthly average of 0.79 events, of which 209 were positive and 0 were negative. According to the coding system and calculation model established above, the identified events were assigned and calculated by the event data analysis, and the results of the quantitative analysis of Sino-Egyptian relations during 2000-2021 were obtained (see , Table 2 and Figure 4). Based on the time points of the main peaks in Figure 4 and the evolutionary trend of geopolitical relations between the peaks, this paper broadly divides the development of Sino-Egyptian bilateral relations since the 21st century into the following four phases. Among them, April 2002, November 2006, and December 2014 are the three peak points, indicating a high degree of friendship between China and Egypt at that point in time.

Phase I: Low-speed development (2000.1-2002.4)
From the beginning of 2000 to April 2002, the value of Sino-Egyptian relations showed a steady increase. It reached 1 in November 2000, then declined slightly and reached its first peak of 1.8 at the end of April 2002. During this period, the relations showed an upward trend but always fluctuated at a lower level. The two sides interacted infrequently, only seven times, with a monthly average of 0.25. This is related to the still imperfect cooperation mechanism and the generally difficult economic development situation of both sides at the beginning of the 21st century. Subsequently, the relationship reached its first high point in the 21st century with the visit of then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji to Egypt in April 2002 (Event score of 1.8). II: Accelerated development (2002.4-2006 Compared with the previous period, this period saw a faster growth in the value of Sino-Egyptian relations as the political and economic situation in Egypt gradually stabilized and the mutual cooperation mechanism became increasingly mature, and the bilateral relations entered a phase of rapid development, with friendly relations between China and Egypt continuously maintained and improved. The two sides interacted 15 times in total, with a monthly average of 0.27, especially represented by the visit of Chinese leaders to Egypt and Egypt's announcement of recognizing China's full market economy status. With relations between the two countries remaining stable, then Chinese President Hu Jintao and then Vice Premier Huang Ju visited Egypt in January and November 2004, respectively, and the only two bilateral geo-relation scores of 1.6 and 1.2 emerged in 2014. When Hu Jintao met with LAS Secretary-General Moussa and representatives of 22 LAS member states, he announced the establishment of CASCF and proposed four principles for a new Sino-Arab partnership . The establishment of CASCF was significant, and it has since then become a new mechanism for Sino-Arab cooperation, playing an important leading role in the development of Sino-Arab relations and laying a solid foundation for the long-term sustainable and healthy development of Sino-Arab relations. The four principles proposed by Hu Jintao have since been regarded as important principles guiding the development of Sino-Arab relations (An, 2010b;Chaziza, 2010b).  (2006.11-2014.12) The values of Sino-Egyptian relations during this period showed a steady development, with the standardized values of the two countries' relations fluctuating mainly between 0 and 2. In December 2014, the value of bilateral relations reached the highest peak (4.2) since the new century. This phase was of full development of Sino-Egyptian bilateral relations, with a cumulative total of 66 interactions between China and Egypt, with a monthly average of 0.68, which shows a significant increase compared to the previous two phases.

Phase III: Comprehensive development
Economically, Sino-Egyptian trade flourished during this period, with bilateral economy and trade showing great vitality. Based on the strong complementarity between Egypt's industrial structure and China's diversified economic structure, Sino-Egyptian bilateral trade and investment developed rapidly and showed a relatively fast growth (Sun, 2019). In 1999, the trade volume between China and Egypt was only 750 million U.S. dollars, but in 2008, it exceeded 6 billion U.S. dollars, showing an astonishing growth rate. In June 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized in the 6th CASCF Ministerial Conference that the "Belt and Road" is a mutually beneficial and win-win road, and that China and Arab countries are natural partners in building the BRI together (Xi, 2014). (Xi, 2014) proposed that China and the Arabian side should adhere to the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration to build a community of interests and destiny. The Arab delegates agreed with President Xi's proposal to strengthen the forum construction and develop Sino-Arab strategic cooperation relations, and supported China's initiative to build "One Belt, One Road" together.
Politically, the two sides further strengthened friendly relations. The National People's Congress of China and the People's Assembly of Egypt have established a regular exchange mechanism. The most typical example of bilateral cooperation at this phase is the establishment of the Sino-Egyptian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in December 2014, when Egyptian President Al-Sisi visited China and the two heads of state jointly decided to further upgrade the Sino-Egyptian strategic cooperation relationship since 1999 to a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed a joint statement on the establishment of it. This event pushed the bilateral relations to a small climax, with the highest score of bilateral relations since the new century (4.2).
Since 2011, Egypt has experienced political and social turmoil, and has suffered some impact on its international and regional influence. However, China and Egypt have always continued to maintain a healthy and stable development of bilateral relations based on mutual understanding, respect, trust and support. Overall, this phase of China's interaction with Egypt has seen a juxtaposition between the economic and political fields. 3.1.4. Phase IV: Fluctuation adjustment (2014.12-2021 This phase is the fluctuation as well as adjustment phase of Sino-Egyptian relations, and has maintained a relatively stable state at a high level. Based on the good cooperation foundation and mature cooperation mechanism already established in the previous period, the two sides cooperated closely and mutually beneficially in political, economic, security, energy, cultural and other fields, and achieved a comprehensive and rapid development of bilateral relations. Along with the deepening of China's BRI initiative and Egypt's important position in it, the number of Sino-Egyptian interactions has increased significantly, even with the impact of the international recession, the sharp drop in energy prices and the COVID-19 sweeping the world, the number of Sino-Egyptian interactions has increased significantly to 121, with a monthly average of 1.4, far better than the previous three phases. The two sides have still maintained a good state of affairs in the political field with the exchange of leadership visits and meetings, etc. The bilateral relationship reached its highest peak (2.8 (Xi, 2016). In addition, Egypt is the first country in Africa to cooperate with China in the production of COVID-19 vaccine. The two countries are working together to be at the forefront of international cooperation in the fight against the epidemic, making practical efforts for the global fight against the epidemic.

Bilateral geo-relations in general show different degrees of fluctuating upward trends
It can be seen from Figure 3 that, for one thing, the bilateral geo-relation scores never presented negative values, indicating that the two countries have maintained friendly relations during the study period. For another, bilateral geo-relations between China and Egypt showed fluctuations and an evolutionary trend of different degrees of increase in different periods. Specifically: the Sino-Egyptian geo-relations score demonstrated a low-speed development until April 2002, fluctuating between 0 and 2 overall, after which there was a certain degree of decline, but it started to recover again from January 2004 and gradually demonstrated an accelerated development trend. Compared with the previous period, the growth rate and frequency of bilateral geo-relation scores increased during [2004][2005][2006]. Then from 2006 to 2014, Sino-Egyptian geo-relations developed comprehensively, and the degree of geo-relations closeness was significantly higher than the previous period. 2014 presented fluctuations and adjustments afterwards, and the fluctuation rate and frequency of bilateral geo-relation scores were the most intense during this study period. In summary, the bilateral geo-relations between China and Egypt showed an overall fluctuating evolution with an upward trend, i.e., the two sides have maintained friendly relations, and the georelations were closer in the later part of the study period than in the earlier period.

The occurrence of the highest peaks in each time period was influenced by the same type of events
Combined with the evolution map of bilateral geo-relations (Figure 3, Figure 4), the events occurred in each month with the highest peak in the divided four periods are analyzed, and it is found that in each time period, the highest peak was affected by the same kind of events. Namely, the top Chinese and Egyptian leaders of the time exchanged visits at different periods of time: in

The driving mechanism of the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations
Given that the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations is influenced by a combination of multiple factors, this research categorized them into three aspects: geopolitics, geo-economy, and geoculture, which complement and interact with each other as the driving force and intrinsic mechanism to influence the evolution of the Sino-Egyptian geo-relations. Among them, Geopolitics is the leading factor influencing the evolution of bilateral geo-relations, and the meetings of heads of state and government and the upgrading of bilateral relations have created a wave of bilateral geo-relations; Geo-economy is a significant factor influencing bilateral geo-relations, and a series of cooperation and agreements have been signed between China and Egypt around economy and trade, energy, investment, and infrastructure construction, which jointly influence the development and changes of bilateral geo-relations; Geo-culture is an important complement to geopolitics and geo-economy, and the mutual exchange and cooperation in traditional culture and talent education and training are important factors driving the evolution of bilateral geo-relations. In general, geopolitics, geo-economy and geo-culture complement each other and interact with each other to influence the evolution of geo-relations between China and Egypt.

Sino-Egyptian geopolitics (1) Striving to enhance the level of political mutual trust
Geopolitics is the primary factor affecting the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations. Political mutual trust means that both sides trust each other politically and each side gives political confidence to each other politically, which affects the bilateral or multilateral cooperation and geographic relations between the countries (Bao & Bo, 2022;Wehner, 2011;Zhang, 2010). Political mutual trust is a very high level in political interactions. China is a rising world power, and some scholars pointed out that rising states are often seen as disruptors of the existing international order, and thus it is crucial to gain trust in the process of rising (Y. Chen, 2014;Seligman, 2021). China and Egypt have achieved better results in terms of political mutual trust, mainly in four aspects: Firstly, the level of Sino-Egyptian political cooperation has been escalating. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Egypt in 1956, bilateral relations have been upgraded continuously, which has profoundly affected the transformation of their georelations. Following the establishment of strategic cooperation relations between China and Egypt in 1999, the bilateral relations were upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2014, and a five-year implementation outline on strengthening the comprehensive strategic partnership was signed in 2016. Referring to Figure 4, it is not difficult to find that the successive upgrades of bilateral relations have brought about the arrival of the peaks of geo-relations. Secondly, the two countries have exchanged frequent visits between senior leaders. Even after the Coronavirus outbreak, the two sides still maintained close high-level contacts. Thirdly, a mechanism of exchange and cooperation between the Chinese People's Congress and the Egyptian Parliament has been established. Fourthly, China and Egypt support each other in major international affairs. For example, China always respects the Egyptian people's right to independently choose their political system and development path, opposes interference in Egypt's internal affairs by external forces in any name, and supports the Egyptian government in maintaining security and stability. Egypt has also repeatedly emphasized in public that it fully supports the Belt and Road Initiative and the close relationship between China and Egypt in implementing relevant projects under the Belt and Road framework (Shou & He, 2021).
On the whole, the Sino-Egyptian interaction at the geopolitical level has guided the direction of Sino-Egyptian cooperation, enriched the connotation of Sino-Egyptian cooperation, consolidated and expanded mutually beneficial cooperation at all levels and in all fields, further enhanced Sino-Egyptian political trust, and promoted the good development of bilateral geo-relations. The establishment of CASCF and FOCAC, the establishment of the Sino-Arab and Sino-Egyptian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, and the signing of the memorandum of understanding on Egypt's participation in BRI are all important initiatives to strengthen and deepen Sino-Egyptian relations, which are important for promoting the BRI construction and exploring international and regional hotspot issues (Bazanova et al., 2018;Yu, 2016Yu, , 2021b. In the future, China and Egypt should first of all continue to work to dovetail their development strategies and visions, and use the two major grasps of infrastructure construction and production capacity cooperation to turn Egypt into a pivot country along the Belt and Road (J. Chen, 2018). Moreover, China should actively build a multi-level government-to-government macro policy communication and exchange mechanism, and make Egypt and the whole world realize through consultation and dialogue that China's rise is peaceful and will not harm the legitimate interests of any country. Lastly, it should make full use of and deepen the CASCF, FOCAC and the BRI mechanism to launch consultations and dialogues on major political and economic issues of concern to China and Egypt, so that Egypt can truly feel that friendly cooperation with China can promote development, while vicious competition will harm the interests of both sides.

(2) Actively urging Egypt to maintain domestic security and stability
There are political, social, security and economic instability factors in Egypt: political instability, widespread terrorism and the urgent need to improve the market environment (Zhao, 2016). Although the foundation for promoting the strategic convergence between China and Egypt is relatively deep, and the docking is rich and complementary, these unstable factors still affect the effectiveness of bilateral strategic docking. In response to these unstable factors, first of all, the cornerstone of "non-interference in internal affairs" should be maintained in the process of engagement with Egypt. This is a fundamental guarantee for China to win the trust of the Egyptian people and maintain China's diplomatic initiative. Secondly, the awareness of risk prevention should be enhanced and an assessment mechanism should be established. Although Egypt's domestic security situation has improved since Al-Sisi came to power, the whole Egyptian society is in a state of "subhealth" (Barnett & Levy, 1991). Demographic problems, unemployment, inflation and religious conflicts, which are the root causes of Egypt's unrest, have not been effectively solved, and these problems may erupt at any time (Barnett & Levy, 1991;Brumberg & Sallam, 2012). Terrorist incidents continue to occur, and the security situation still remains severe. Although the spread of al-Qaeda and ISIS in Egypt has been somewhat curbed, terrorist activities in Egypt, especially in the Sinai Peninsula, are still rampant (Krylov, 2020). Egypt has a local protection policy, little awareness of foreign investment protection, and limited and bureaucratic law enforcement. Egypt has strict regulations on the shares and employees of foreign enterprises, and some projects with fast results and high profits are mostly given priority to the Egyptian military and Egyptian enterprises, while most of the projects undertaken by Chinese enterprises are projects with large capital investment and long payback period, which itself has greater risks (Elsaid & El-Hennawi, 1982;Klau, 2010). In order to further adapt to the changing situation and enhance the protection capacity of China's overseas interests in Egypt, China needs to improve its risk management capacity, first of all, to establish an assessment mechanism for political, economic, security, efficiency and environmental aspects of investment in Egypt at the government level, especially to establish a complete security risk assessment-early warning mechanism and security protection mechanism to enhance the anti-risk capacity. In addition to strengthening its own precautionary awareness and emergency response mechanism, the Egyptian government should also be required to provide stronger security guarantees and appropriately enhance its ability to communicate and engage with local governments, tribal forces and even anti-government forces. At the end, the risk is shared through the introduction of thirdparty participation in Sino-Egyptian cooperation. On the one hand, it can reduce risks and improve risk control capacity by cooperating with international organizations and using their experience in identifying and evaluating project risks. On the other hand, third-party cooperation can be carried out in Egypt with Saudi Arabia, France, and other countries to take advantage of the advantages of third-party countries in capital, technology, and operation to reduce cooperation risks, achieve complementary advantages, and promote the formation of a community of interests (X. Guo & Liu, 2022).

Sino-Egyptian geo-economy
Geo-economy is an important factor influencing the evolution of geo-relations between China and Egypt. China and Egypt are highly complementary economically, and it is strategically important to maintain good and positive economic and trade relations. By sorting out and summarizing the events of bilateral interactions, it is easy to find that, in general, the events of bilateral interactions between China and Egypt are dominated by economic exchanges or economic aspects of interactions. The historical experience of the evolution of geo-relations shows that close economic ties can, to a certain extent, contribute to the positive political development of both countries, which is reflected in the evolution of China's geo-relations with Egypt (Roberts et al., 2019;Vihma, 2018) The Belt and Road is a road of win-win cooperation for common development and prosperity, and a road of peace and friendship for increasing understanding and trust and strengthening all-round exchanges (Maçães, 2021;Wu et al., 2019). Therefore, the positive interaction between China and Egypt in geo-relations should give full play to the role of the BRI in the economic field.

(1) Accelerating infrastructure construction with energy cooperation as the mainstay
First, in terms of energy cooperation, energy security is the basis of national economic security and has become a hot topic in today's geopolitical research. Power shortages and frequent power outages have previously plagued Egypt, and this has become a major obstacle to Egypt's transition to a new energy industry. Therefore, China and Egypt pay special attention to the production capacity cooperation. As early as 2014, when Egyptian President Al-Sisi visited China, the leaders of the two countries agreed to establish a mechanism for Sino-Egyptian cooperation on production capacity. In September 2015, the two sides signed a framework agreement on energy cooperation (Wang & Li, 2019). This led to extensive cooperation between China and Egypt around energy in the fields of transportation, electricity, industry, etc., creating several small peaks in Sino-Egyptian geo-relations. According to the Ministry of Commerce's announcement of eight key Chinese investment enterprises in Egypt in 2017, fully half of them were engaged in the development of oil and gas resources and the construction and management of industrial zones. In 2018, the optical fiber cable plant built by China Hengtong Group and Egypt Hitek Nofal Group was officially put into operation, becoming the first local fiber optic cable plant in Egypt. The first 500kV UHV transformer production line in the Middle East and North Africa, jointly invested by China Western Electric Group and EGEMAC of Egypt, was successfully put into operation in Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone. 1 The signing of all these projects is a manifestation of the deepening Sino-Egyptian energy cooperation, which is also reflected in the bilateral geo-relations trend chart. And with China's rising control of petrochemical pollution and the rapid development of bilateral gas trade, there is great potential for future Sino-Egyptian cooperation in the gas sector (Adawi & He, 2020;Scott, 2015). With China's increasing investment in Egypt's energy sector, the geoeconomic ties between China and Egypt have been further tightened and deepened, and China's geopolitical influence in Egypt has been enhanced.
In 2014, Egypt proposed a new national development strategy, the Revitalization Plan, in order to improve people's livelihoods, promote economic development, escape the realities faced in recent years, and achieve Egypt's renaissance. 2 The implementation of Egypt's Revitalization Plan requires huge foreign investment and advanced technology to support, while China needs to find a habitat for the capital and advanced technology. Infrastructure contracting should be the core area of mutual strategic docking (W. Ma & Zhao, 2020). Currently, Egypt is implementing plans for the construction of Greater Cairo, the Suez Canal Economic Corridor, the transformation of ports such as Alexandria, the construction of a high-speed rail network in five provinces from Alexandria to Luxor, and the development of tourism projects, all of which are infrastructure projects and require large amounts of capital (Alana et al., 2019). One of the strong points of Chinese companies is infrastructure construction, with strong technical advantages and engineering experience (Y. Wang, 2001;Y. Wang et al., 2017). Chinese companies can carry out engineering contracts in port expansion, tunnel digging, road and railroad construction, light rail construction, new airport construction, new cities, new rural areas, tourist villages, industrial parks and shipping companies, or invest in building materials industry projects related to rich raw materials such as marble, white sand, gypsum and cotton. This is beneficial for both China and Egypt to achieve a win-win situation (Hatab et al., 2012).

(2) Deepening economic and trade cooperation
Since Egypt announced the recognition of China's full market economy status in 2006, the two governments have actively encouraged and promoted the expansion of economic and trade exchanges between enterprises of both sides, and bilateral economic and trade relations have shown great vitality (Gadallah, 2016;Hatab et al., 2012;Y. Wang et al., 2017). Trade cooperation is a core component of Sino-Egyptian geo-economic relations. In the trade sector, bilateral trade volume has gradually increased from $900 million in 2000 to $13.2 billion in 2019, with a general upward trend ( Figure 5). In 2020, China-Egypt trade overcame the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and even showed a counter-trend growth, with trade volume reaching $14.566 billion, up 10.34% year-on-year (Ministry of Commerce of the PRC, 2021). China mainly exports electromechanical products, high-tech products as well as textile and garments to Egypt, and imports crude oil, liquefied petroleum gas and agricultural products from Egypt (X. Ma & Song, 2016;Sharp, 2011). Due to trade structure issues, China is the largest source of Egypt's trade deficit, a position it has maintained since 2009 until now, when it became Egypt's top trading partner as well as the largest source of imports. The bilateral trade between China and Egypt continues to maintain a surplus and is generally on an upward trend ( Figure 5). In the investment sector, Chinese direct investment in Egypt has been growing since 2000, with the stock of Chinese direct investment in Egypt rising from only $14 million in 2003 to $221 million in 2018 ( Figure 6). China's investment in Egypt includes engineering contracting business, direct investment in production and plant construction, and various financial businesses, etc. Especially after the establishment of the China-Africa Development Fund, China's non-financial direct investment in Egypt has taken off, involving cement, glass, chemicals, textiles, electricity, high-speed rail, building materials, automobiles, and energy, etc.
Although Sino-Egyptian economic and trade relations continue to improve, there are still some problems on both sides. For example, bilateral trade is imbalanced, and Chinese investment in Egypt is insufficient and lacks comparative advantages. The trade imbalance between China and Egypt has been persistent, and the deficit is huge (see Figure 5). Compared with the major investing countries in Egypt, China's non-financial direct investment in Egypt is small in scale and lacks comparative advantages in overall investment (Wang et al., 2017). In terms of trade, China is Egypt's top trading partner and Egypt is China's third largest trading partner in Africa, but still in the range of China's 40th-50th largest trading partner worldwide (Guo & Liu, 2022). There is a serious trade imbalance between the two countries, with Egypt's dependence on China being large, while China's dependence on Egypt is almost negligible (Wang & Li, 2019).
For the time being, China and Egypt need to change the current economic and trade model, especially China should work to improve the serious imbalance between the two countries' import and export trade relations, increase non-financial direct investment, and help Egypt to upgrade its industrial structure (Chen, 2018;Elmaghraby, 2020;Gadallah, 2016). For example, given the favorable situation that Egypt has been attracting foreign investment and providing many preferential policies and facilities, China can moderately expand its investment in Egypt's livelihood sector, so as to promote Egypt's economic and social development and enhance China's ability to influence and shape Egypt. In the long run, China and Egypt should deepen trade facilitation and establish a standardized institutional mechanism for trade facilitation in order to achieve a truly smooth flow of trade. Trade facilitation aims to create a continuous, transparent and predictable environment for international trade, thereby simplifying and harmonizing trade-related procedures and administrative barriers, reducing costs and promoting better flow of goods and services (Ma & Zhao, 2020). China and Egypt should build on existing bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms to gradually establish information, customs clearance, regulatory, judicial and policy facilitation to achieve trade facilitation. By improving investment cooperation and deepening trade facilitation, the steady development of bilateral geo-economy can be promoted to ensure the benign development of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations (Scott, 2015;Zhao, 2016).

(3) vigorously promoting the construction of the Sino-Egyptian economic cooperation system
The biggest highlight of Sino-Egyptian geo-economic cooperation is undoubtedly the Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone. Established in 2008, this zone is located at the southern mouth of the Suez Canal and the western bank of the Red Sea, 120 kilometers from the Egyptian capital Cairo. After the BRI was put forward, the zone fits into the "Suez Canal Corridor Development Plan" proposed by Egypt in 2015, and its development has entered the fast track. The zone is a high-level comprehensive economic and trade cooperation zone, and is also regarded as a landmark project of Sino-Egyptian cooperation, which is a model of mutual cooperation in the context of different political systems, economic structures, management models and cultural differences (An, 2010a;Rapanyane, 2021). A considerable number of Chinese-invested enterprises in the cooperation zone are leading enterprises in Egypt's industrial development, such as Jumbo Egypt, which produces glass fiber, Shenyang Group, which produces grain storage steel plates and feed machinery and equipment production lines, Western Electric, which produces high-and low-voltage electrical appliances, and Honghua, which produces oil drilling equipment. These are all important enterprises that fill the gaps in Egyptian industry. 3 The Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone has become a calling card for Chinese investment in Egypt. Over the past fourteen years, it has attracted more than $1 billion in Chinese investment, created nearly 4,000 local jobs, and greatly enhanced the efficiency of resource allocation (Cao, 2015;Tang, 2021).
Currently, China's economic growth rate is declining due to economic restructuring, and consumption, domestic investment and foreign trade capacity continue to be low. To break out of the economic downturn, China needs a wide external market, and Egypt's economic development needs a large amount of capital and technology, while China has the advantage of having a large amount of capital and many practical technologies (Chaziza, 2021;Chen, 2018). This lays the economic foundation for the effective docking of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Revitalization Plan. The experience of building the Sino-Egyptian Suez Canal Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone provides a unique basis for the effective docking of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Egypt's Revitalization Plan. In the process of establishing the zone, China and Egypt have accumulated a lot of experience in the negotiation of project cooperation, starting construction, attracting investment, cooperation management and future planning. On the one hand, improving the construction of infrastructure and supporting services such as education, medical care and training is indispensable for the development and operation of the enterprises in the park (Ma & song, 2016;Zhao, 2016). On the other hand, facing the major issues of the park construction, it is necessary to play the role of inter-governmental cooperation mechanism and give support at the policy level, which is conducive to helping the park enterprises to solve their problems effectively (Adawi & He, 2020).These valuable experiences are conducive to promoting the institutional construction of Sino-Egyptian economic cooperation, strengthening the construction of industrial parks and forming industrial clusters. In addition to Suez Cooperation Zone, Chinese enterprises can also choose to invest in other national industrial parks such as Sadat Industrial Park in Egypt, in order to take advantage of the existing industrial clusters in Egypt to form industrial clustering effect. These areas have a relatively high population density and a certain industrial base, which is more helpful to take advantage of Egypt's "population bonus" and its potential huge market (Elmaghraby, 2020;Ma & Song, 2016;Zhao, 2016).
In general, geo-economy has gradually become an important area of interactive events between China and Egypt. Most of the cooperation in the geo-economic field is carried out under the recommendation of both governments, while leading to the signing and implementation of a series of agreements, thus influencing the evolution of mutual geo-relations.

Sino-Egyptian geo-culture
Geo-cultural cooperation is a complement and extension of geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation and is gradually becoming another important factor influencing the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations. Currently, mutual exchanges and cooperation in the fields of culture, education, and tourism are increasing, and China is devoting its efforts to promote humanistic connectivity with Egypt (Shan, 2018). To be specific:

(1) Strengthening cultural exchanges and cooperation
Exchanges and cooperation in the field of culture are important issues in the meetings between the leaders of China and Egypt and are an important component of the signed agreements. China and Egypt signed a cultural cooperation agreement in 1956, and since then they have signed 10 cultural cooperation implementation plans. In recent years, activities such as the Sino-Egyptian Wushu Sparring Competition, the All-Egyptian Chinese Contemporary Fiction Youth Translation Competition, and the My China Story Arabic Essay Contest have become brands of Sino-Egyptian cultural exchange, which are popular among the people of both countries, especially the youth (Yu, 2021b). Such events present Chinese culture to the Egyptian people in a colorful way and increase the Egyptian people's sense of identity with China, and could be held more often.
Under the epidemic, cloud classes, cloud exhibitions, cloud food, cloud performances and cloud lectures can also be held. Besides, the tradition of regularly holding mutual cultural year activities should be continued, and the focus should be on showcasing the mutual traditional culture, giving full play to the role of folk collectives, and promoting cultural exchanges to a higher level through "going out and inviting in" and other forms of in-depth exchanges (Selim & Moaaz, 2021). In the process of mutual cultural exchange and cooperation, the understanding of mutual cultural differences should be enhanced, the multicultural consensus should be strengthened, and the differences in values, customs and habits of different cultures should be respected and adapted (An, 2010b;Chaziza, 2021;Chen, 2018).
(2) Emphasizing cooperation in human resources education and training, especially in vocational education African countries are now paying more and more attention to vocational education, and Uganda is even taking vocational education as an engine for socio-economic development and transformation. Among the key directions of China-Egypt education cooperation, there is no doubt about the importance of vocational skills training (Li & Pilz, 2021). At present, Egypt's skills training has a low degree of internationalization, insufficient practical training and other problems, oil, manufacturing, information technology and other industries in urgent need of talent, Egypt is trying to reform the vocational and technical education and training system (Sharp, 2011). China happens to have the largest vocational education system in the world, and the matching vocational qualification system is mature and complete. In the process of Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation, the mature vocational education system and standards can be extended to Egypt based on China's experience and Chinese wisdom, which can become an important reference and reference for Egypt's vocational education. Egypt can then gradually improve its vocational education system according to its local conditions (Adawi & He, 2020).
The construction of BRI is making more and more Chinese enterprises go global, and Chinese enterprises in Egypt should play the role of the main operator of Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation, promote the deep integration of "industry" and "learning", and improve the accuracy and effectiveness of Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation (Ma & Zhao, 2020). The government should also pay attention to the key position of Chinese enterprises in human resources development, technical skills training and capacity building in Africa, and play a normative and leading role in providing legal protection, financial support and market orientation, establish the main status of Chinese enterprises participating in Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation in the form of law at the policy and system level, clarify the responsibilities and rights boundaries of enterprises participating in the cooperation, and define the mechanism of qualification certification, evaluation mechanism, withdrawal mechanism, policy preference and compensation mechanism for enterprises participating in Sino-Egyptian vocational education (Chaziza, 2021. In the process of Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation, China should seek to build together with Egypt according to the principle of "government guidance, industry coordination, enterprises in charge of construction, and institutions in charge of teaching", fully mobilize and give full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of Chinese enterprises, and play the role of the market to promote Sino-Egyptian vocational education cooperation to a deeper level. Chinese institutions should also follow the pace, through the government, institutions and enterprises to make the Egyptian youth skills quality and actual employment prospects compatible, truly promote the development of various industries and industrialization process in Egypt, and help Egypt achieve economic transformation (Li & Pilz, 2021).
These are concrete manifestations of the mutual geo-cultural cooperation, as well as a positive response to the "Closer People-to-people Ties" in the BRI. Cultural exchanges are the basis for economic mutual contacts and cooperation in other fields. Building on cultural understanding and civilizational dialogue, all mutual cooperation will be easier and more sustainable. In the future, China should make efforts to promote cultural exchanges between China and Africa in various fields, especially at the level of civil friendship exchanges, in order to enhance African people's understanding of traditional Chinese culture and improve the commonality of cultural values.

Conclusions
With the changing international landscape, the U.S. policy towards the Middle East has become unpopular. The Arab countries are looking for a suitable development path due to internal and external shocks, and the strong attraction of China's rapid economic development has prompted the Arab countries to implement the Look East policy (Brumberg & Sallam, 2012;Selim & Moaaz, 2021). Egypt's special geopolitical location makes it an important geopolitical zone in the world's geopolitical landscape today (Adawi & He, 2020;Sharp, 2011). As stated by Introduction, Egypt has important geostrategic significance for China. The direction of geo-relations with Egypt is related to the smooth promotion of China's Belt and Road construction and China's peaceful rise (An, 2010a;Wang, 2006). In this context, it is the basic goal of both sides to expand and deepen the geopolitical relations between the two countries on the basis of the traditional friendship. Based on this, this paper adopted the event data analysis method to quantitatively analyze the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geopolitical relations and the driving mechanism, and discussed the path to deepen and develop Sino-Egyptian relations in three aspects: geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-cultural relations. The main conclusions drawn are as follows: (1) This paper divided the evolution of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations into four periods and analyzed the characteristics of the evolution of bilateral geo-relations in each time period. By observing the evolution map of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations, the overall characteristics and patterns of bilateral geo-relations are summarized as follows: the overall mutual georelations presented a fluctuating upward trend, i.e., the geo-relations were closer in the later part of the study period than in the earlier period; the highest peaks of geo-relations in all four time periods were generated by the same type of events, i.e., the exchange of visits between top Chinese and Egyptian leaders.
(2) Based on the general characteristics and patterns of the evolution of Sino-Egyptian georelations and the influencing factors and driving mechanisms of geo-relations, the future development path of Sino-Egyptian geo-relations is discussed from three aspects: geopolitical relations, geo-economic relations and geo-cultural relations. The geopolitical relations are mainly improved by focusing on enhancing the level of mutual political trust and urging Egypt to maintain domestic security and stability. Countermeasures for the development of geo-economic relations include accelerating infrastructure construction mainly in energy cooperation, deepening economic and trade cooperation and vigorously promoting the construction of the Sino-Egyptian economic cooperation system. The countermeasures for the development of geo-cultural relations are: strengthening cultural exchanges and cooperation with Egypt, paying attention to cooperation in talent education and talent training, especially vocational education.
In conclusion, since the 21st century, Sino-Egyptian geo-relations have generally maintained a good development tendency. In recent years, the international situation has been undergoing profound changes with the continuous development of the international tendency of "rising in the east and falling in the west", and the world is facing a big change that has never been seen in a century. Under the COVID-19 epidemic, the international situation is even more turbulent, and both China and Egypt are facing new challenges and opportunities (Lao, 2019;Yu, 2021b). Despite the complex international situation and the unstable domestic environment, the Egyptian government has always been close to China, and the Sino-Egyptian relations have always developed healthily and become a model of relations between developing countries and South-South cooperation (Chaziza, 2021;Lu, 2018;Sun & Zhang, 2018;Xi, 2014). It is expected that the Egyptian government's policy toward China will not be fundamentally reversed in the future, and the general trend of friendly and developing bilateral relations will not change. China and Egypt will still maintain friendly and cooperative relations and work together for mutual development.