A decade after his last visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Cairo to meet President Sisi at a moment when the architecture of global alliances is being quietly but consequentially rearranged. With the United States tightening sanctions over Iran and warning that even friendly nations' banks are not exempt, Egypt finds itself at the intersection of two competing visions of world order — one anchored in Western military and financial power, the other in the rising weight of Chinese investment and south-south solidarity. The visit is less a bilateral courtesy call than a demonstration,