Challenge: Egypt a great power without Ali Pasha

With a PoD after 1750, could Egypt have became an independent great power on the scale of Japan even without the modernizing efforts of Ali Pasha?
 
Egypt had a very a stagnant population due to a stagnant and possibly declining agricultural production. Any country that could attain great power status, requires an agricultural base for which to sponsor any potential diplomatic expansionism. Egypt requires a medieval or pre medieval POD, so that it can attend to its stagnant population and agricultural production.
 
It's highly unlikely. Egypt was too outclassed in technology, and organizational skills to rise that quickly, as a modern state. Their culture was too backward looking to the glories of the Kalifate, to press forward towards the educational, and cultural changes necessary to compete with the European Powers. Geography placed them in the crosshairs of the European Global expansion of the 19th Century. Digging the Suez Cannel, and the scramble for Africa made Egypt too tempting a target to be left alone. Japan had the advantage of being on the far side of the world, which brought them time to modernize. Japanese Culture, being more adaptable, and submissive to a central authority was quicker to reach modernity then 19th Century Egypt.
 
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