CAIRO: Egypt and China are looking to improve their relationship further. This time, both country's military cooperation will be buttressed, Deputy Chief of China's General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Ma Xiaotian said. He pledged to strengthen and increase Egypt and China's bilateral military ties. This comes at a time when Egypt is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States in military aid. China hopes the move will push Cairo and Beijing toward closer ties as the East Asian nation looks to keep their growing presence in Africa moving forward. Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the Egyptian Minister of Defense, said during the meeting last week that the two countries have seen close cooperation in military, political and economic fields in recent years, which serves both countries' interests as well as regional and world peace and stability. “The Egyptian military attaches great importance to the friendly relationship with the Chinese counterpart and expects more efforts to be made to further improve pragmatic cooperation,” Tantawi said. For his part, Ma said the two sides enjoy long-term friendly relationship, and fruitful cooperation has been accomplished in the fields of high-level visits and professional personnel training. “The Chinese side is willing to make joint efforts with the Egyptian side to consolidate the traditional friendship and push forward the in-depth cooperation between the two militaries,” Ma said. Ma arrived in Cairo last Tuesday and during his visit, he also presided over the first session of the Chinese-Egyptian Defense Cooperation Commission. BM
