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China-Italy ties: as Rome looks for belt and road exit it’s expected to be ‘punished twice’ without reaping benefits
- For China, losing the belt and road’s richest Western member and a key node on the original Silk Road will be a symbolic blow
- Italian PM Giorgia Meloni expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on trip to China in autumn, following meeting with Joe Biden in Washington last month
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Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels
Italy’s participation in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy tool, the Belt and Road Initiative, is drawing to a close, with Rome expected to pull the plug on the four-year saga by the end of the year.
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By not renewing a memorandum of understanding signed in 2019, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will ensure no country is a member of both the Group of 7 rich countries and China’s infrastructure bonanza.
The final nail in the coffin appeared to be hammered into place last week, when Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto called the decision to join the initiative “improvised and atrocious”.
Meloni is expected to travel to Beijing in autumn to explain the decision to Xi in person after meeting US President Joe Biden in Washington last week.
02:58
China announces US$3.8 billion Belt and Road expansion in Central Asia
China announces US$3.8 billion Belt and Road expansion in Central Asia
The writing has been on the wall for some time. Even on the campaign trail, Meloni described the decision to join as a “big mistake”. Managing the fallout of the situation, however, puts the country’s first far-right leader since World War II in an unenviable position.
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The decision comes as most of western Europe is trying to rebalance ties with China. But while Brussels has left its de-risking strategy deliberately vague – partly to offer EU members diplomatic cover when disentangling themselves from parts of the Chinese supply chain – no such ambiguity is available to Meloni.
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