New Silk Roads - Malek Al-Sarnamy - Temporal States: Speculation, Myth, and the New Egyptian Capital

Temporal States: Speculation, Myth, and the New Egyptian Capital

Malek Al-Sarnamy

Arc_NSR_MA_14

Illustration of the “Future Prospects” of collaboration between China’s Belt and Road initiative and Egypt Vision 2030. Source: CSCEC Egypt Sustainability Report 2022–2023.

New Silk Roads
June 2025










Notes
1

David Sims, Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010), 215–20.

2

Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (London: Verso, 2014), 13.

3

Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 19–53.

4

Gilbert F. White, “The Environmental Effects of the High Dam at Aswan,” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 30, no. 7 (1988): 5–40.

5

Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Speech on the Nationalization of the Suez Canal,” July 26, 1956.

6

W. J. Dorman, “Exclusion and Informality: The Praetorian Politics of Land Management in Cairo, Egypt,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37, no. 5 (2013): 1584–1610.

7

While this initial plan fell through, Chinese-state-owned companies still remain heavily involved. ; .

8

Patrick Werr, “Egypt Plans Expansion of New Capital as First Residents Trickle In,” Reuters, January 4, 2024, .

9

“IMF Staff and the Egyptian Authorities Reach Staff Level Agreement on the First and Second Reviews under the EFF Arrangement,” International Monetary Fund, March 6, 2024, .

10

Patrick Werr, “EU pledges billions of euros for Egypt as it seeks to curb migration,” Reuters, March 17, 2024, .

11

Patrick Werr, “Egypt Plans Expansion of New Capital.”

12

“Egypt’s Army Inc.: The Rise of a Military Economy,” Zawia3, May 25, 2025, .

13

Yezid Sayigh, “Owners of the Republic: An Anatomy of Egypt’s Military Economy,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 18, 2019, .

14

Zachary White, “POMED Report Looks At Al-Sisi’s $58 Billion New Capital City: A Bubble About to Burst?” Middle East Democracy Center, June 7, 2023, .

15

“The New Administrative Capital: Authority and the Erosion of Rights in the Egyptian City,” Rowaq Arabi 29, no. 2 (2024: 201–20, .