Opinion | Italy urgently needs introspection

By Tom Fowdy

It seems the government of Italy are dead-set on their intention to leave China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) when their memorandum of understanding expires in 2024. Over the weekend, Italy's defence minister described the decision to join China's infrastructure scheme as "atrocious", although some translations varied, and accused participation of being worthless as exports to China did not increase, conveniently, of course, omitting the global context of the pandemic on international trade and Italy's economy. The comments came amidst Italian Prime Minister Giorgina Meloni's visit to the White House to meet Joe Biden, which of course also involved a pledge of political loyalty to the US transatlantic foreign policy cause on China and Russia respectively.

In recent years, Italy's foreign policy has been usurped by the transatlantic elite, following a dissenting turn under Giuseppe Conte which saw them join the BRI and of course rebel against the European Union following the damage the Eurozone debt crisis and its subsequent austerity regimes had imposed on Rome. The GDP of Italy had been stagnant for years, ushering in a lost decade which peaked at $2.4 trillion in 2008 and fell to 1.8 trillion by 2015. Although the economy of Italy has recovered somewhat, it still remains a substantially poorer country than what it was 15 years ago, which is precisely what drove widespread political disillusionment against the country's political classes and the Euro elite.

It is little surprise based on this premise that the Conte government looked east, rather than west for its economic dilemmas. China represented a new opportunity for Italy, not only did it provide the world's largest export and consumer market, but also the chance for the peninsula to position itself as a logistical and commercial gateway to Europe in the same way Greece had become with port Piraeus. Membership in the Belt and Road was a no-brainer, but unfortunately to do as a "core" Western country and a member of the G7 was seen as a truly blasphemous act which represented a hammer blow to the US-dominated order. Thus, even before Italy decided to "leave" the BRI, work was underway to undermine its relationship with Beijing.

Following the downfall of Conte's government, Mario Draghi, former President of the Eurobank, became Prime Minister of Italy. Draghi of course was a member of the Transatlanic and Brussels elite, and quickly began reorientating Italy's foreign policy. Although Italian politicians now claim that the BRI brought no benefits to the country, the reality is that Draghi began vetoing Chinese investments on a large scale in line with US foreign policy preferences. As early as 2021, Italy's love in with China was over and its membership of the Belt and Road initiative was very much "in name only." The government subsequently shunned any trade and investment dialogues with China, ensuring that it amounted to nothing, not for that matter because Beijing wasn't offering anything.

Thus, the war in Ukraine provided another opportunity for the US to exert its influence over Italy, quickly marshalling a once sceptical Giorgina Meloni into a champion of Kyiv and of course ensuring she made the customary visit to the country herself. Despite the fact she represents a far-right party, this has never seemingly been an issue for any of her Western counterparts, precisely because she pays lip service to the correct things therefore she is presented as a champion of freedom and democracy. However, the reality that she is in office in the first place nods to the reality that Italy's pathway under the hegemony of the US and the EU has not been a beneficial one, and that these are not conscious policy choices by the Italian public who vote for her.

Meloni claims that she wishes to find a way to leave the BRI "without damaging relations with China." But this is wishful thinking because the damage has already been done. China is likely to perceive Italy as lacking independence in its foreign policy preferences and subservient to the US, therefore giving it less incentivisation to deal with them bilaterally. As mentioned, the spree of vetoes against Chinese investments, as well as the intervention in an Italian tire maker partially owned by China by Meloni, shows that Italy is no longer a stable place to do business for Chinese firms, which is disappointing. While of course Chinese people will continue to value Italy as an extraordinary cultural and historical place to visit, as does the rest of the world, this isn't enough to fix the country's deep-set structural economic problems. Italy is for all intents and purposes a declining country, but has instead nailed its colours to the mast of a sinking ship. It is easy to blame China for the failure of its BRI membership, but for two of those four years Rome consciously decided to become uncooperative. The writing has been on the wall for its departure for a long time, but don't assume it will go down well just because of that.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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