The first Chinese language teaching department in the Arab world was established in 1958 at Ain Shams University in Egypt after the Bandung Conference when China and Egypt formed a temporary alliance during the Cold War. China Studies as an academic discipline in Egypt, however, is a very new development. The Center for Asian Studies at Cairo University was established in 1994 as a policy-oriented research organization. This reflects the growing interest in Egypt about research on Asia. Although at the beginning, their publications mainly focused on Japan, with the rise of China in recent years, there have been more research on China as well. The Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies is another major institute for research on contemporary politics of China. Both Centers have published a series of books on Arab-China international relations. In addition, Zaqaziq University in the al-Sharqia Governorate hosts a Higher Institute of Asian Studies and Researches, which has produced a history textbook on East Asia in general. However, these developments reveal two major gaps on China Studies in Egypt. First, whereas a growing number of Egyptians have studied the Chinese language, most of them go to work in the business sector or as tour guides, rather than becoming a researcher. On the other hand, the scholars who research on China do not always have Chinese language skills. As Cairo University established its Chinese Language Department 2010 (the second one in Egypt) and the Chinese government sponsored Chinese language teaching centers—the Confucian Institute—opened at Cairo University and the Suez Canal University, it is hoped that this gap can be filled in the near future. Secondly, whereas the Egyptian faculties in the Chinese Language Departments at Ain Shams University and Cairo University usually have systematic Chinese language training and have spent some time living in China, their research often concentrate on Chinese linguistics and literature. They have produced textbooks for teaching Chinese as a foreign language to Arabic native speakers. They have also translated some of the masterpieces of Chinese literature. However, shelved mainly in university libraries, these valuable research and translation results are circulated only among a few specialists in the field, but not widely to the general public. The books on China readily available in bookstores or used book market, on the other hand, are still mostly translated from European languages.