Very discreetly, Italy has changed course and officially abandoned China's controversial New Silk Road. In 2019, it was the first G-7 country to join China's massive infrastructure program (Belt and Road Initiative or BRI, as it is called in English), with which the Asian giant aims to connect with the main economies of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, to the disappointment of Washington and the reluctance of Brussels, who saw it as an attempt by China to increase its political and economic influence in the world. Four years later, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has wanted to please her allies and notified Beijing that she is getting off the boat three months before March 2024, when the agreement should have been automatically renewed. .
Meloni has opted for caution. He is not interested in a public confrontation with Beijing. Four days ago, Italy delivered a note to the authorities of the Asian giant in which it officially communicated the cancellation of the memorandum, but at the same time promised that, despite leaving the infrastructure initiative, the strategic relations between the two countries would continue. Both Italy and China have preferred not to make any official public communication. Beijing does not want to encourage other governments disappointed with its benefits to do the same, and Rome, because it has many economic interests at stake.
Now it remains to be seen whether the good relations will continue or whether, on the contrary, Beijing will seek revenge with trade retaliation. The costs for Italy could be high – for example, in the luxury sector – and this has been evidenced by the weeks that its diplomats have been negotiating. To avoid tensions, Rome wanted to change the terms of the agreement and that, instead of leaving the Silk Road, its participation would be canceled in order not to renew the membership, but the Chinese authorities were not there. 'agreement and requested a formal cancellation, explained the Corriere della Sera.
Italy joined the massive infrastructure program under the Executive of Giuseppe Conte, now leader of the 5 Star Movement. The official objective was to facilitate exports of Made in Italy products to the Chinese market, the fastest growing in the world, and at the same time to increase Chinese investments in Italy. The memorandum promised collaborations worth up to 20,000 million euros. But in the four years that Italy has been part of this initiative, exports to China have grown slightly. If in 2019 they represented 13,000 million euros, in 2022 they amounted to 16,400 million. On the other hand, Chinese imports from Italy have increased from 31.7 billion to 57.5 billion. In September, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, already admitted that the firm had not produced the results that were expected.
Under the government of Mario Draghi, relations already cooled to the point that the former president of the European Central Bank prevented China from acquiring strategic companies in the microchip and truck sector. And during the electoral campaign that brought her to power, the leader of Brothers of Italy said that the decision to join the Silk Road had been a "big mistake". In that time, Meloni has striven to become a reliable leader for the US, showing her Atlanticist vocation and not backing down on her support for Ukraine, and has signaled for months that her intention was to leave of the New Silk Road program.
The problem was how to do it without economic and commercial repercussions. The discretion to avoid a public rupture already warns of the delicacy of the matter. For this reason, Meloni has long explained that good relations with China can be maintained without being part of the BRI. In September, after a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang in the framework of the G-20 in New Delhi - when she would have communicated her decision -, the Italian leader already said that there is more to this program. "There are European nations that in recent years have not been part of the BRI, but have been able to forge more favorable relations with China than us", he considered in a press conference. It remains to be seen whether Beijing agrees.
