Home » Opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative, the new Italian government intends to be tough on the CCP | Italian election | Giorgia Meloni |

Opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative, the new Italian government intends to be tough on the CCP | Italian election | Giorgia Meloni |

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Opposition to the Belt and Road Initiative, the new Italian government intends to be tough on the CCP | Italian election | Giorgia Meloni |

[Epoch Times, October 1, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Song Tang comprehensive report) On September 25, the results of the Italian general election were announced, and the right-wing alliance led by the Fraternal Party of Italy (FdI) won 44% of the votes and has Congress. With majorities in both houses, fraternal party leader Giorgia Meloni is expected to become Italy’s first female prime minister.

During the campaign, Meloni repeatedly expressed his tough stance on the CCP regime and clearly supported Taiwan, while the other two leaders of the right-wing alliance were also hawkish toward the CCP. With the establishment of a new right-wing government, Italy is bound to strengthen cooperation with like-minded partners such as Taiwan and alienate the CCP.

The three leaders of the right-wing coalition are unanimously tough on the CCP

Meloni has often said that, if elected, she will steer Italy into a more overt anti-China stance, determined not to make Italy a “weak link” among Western allies.

Regarding the signing of the “One Belt, One Road” memorandum between Italy and the CCP in 2019, Meloni said that this was a big mistake made by the political party “Five Star Movement”, and indicated that she had not yet seen the political conditions for renewal.

Meloni’s diplomatic adviser, Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, made it clear that “when the Belt and Road memorandum expires, it will be in close consultation with European and Atlantic partners to A thorough review of it is inevitable.”

Unlike the two allies of the right-wing coalition, the Italian Brotherhood has been seeking closer ties with Taiwan. In the early stages of the 2022 election, Meloni met with Taiwan’s representative in Italy, Li Xinying, and tweeted that she would “always stand with those who believe in the value of freedom and democracy.”

On September 25, Meloni also gave a rare interview to Taiwan Central News Agency. Meloni said that if elected, “there is no doubt that Taiwan will be an important concern for Italy.”

Senator Lucio Malan of the Brotherhood of Italy is one of the two presidents of Italy’s InterParliamentary Alliance on China, an alliance to coordinate how democracies respond to the growing CCP. Aggressive attitude.

The right-wing coalition led by Melloni, including right-wing coalition leader Matteo Salvini and Forza leader and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (pictured), may have different attitudes on Russia. They are different, but in their attitude towards the CCP, the three are no different. (Matteo Bazzi/ANSA/AFP)/Italy OUT

As head of the Italian-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group since 2013, Maran is one of Italy’s most vocal critics of China’s aggressive foreign policy. In February 2022, Malan, together with 10 senior senators, sent a letter to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), expressing serious concern about Taiwan’s unreasonable exclusion from the WHO’s global epidemic prevention network.

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Melloni’s right-wing coalition, which includes Right-wing coalition leader Matteo Salvini and Forza leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, on Russia The three may have different attitudes, but they are the same in their attitude towards the CCP.

Former Prime Minister Berlusconi has always had a bad impression of the CCP. In the 2019 European Parliament elections, Berlusconi warned that the CCP’s “economic and political expansion” and that “the ‘China (CCP) model’ as opposed to Western values ​​is a challenge in the coming decades”.

Berlusconi also called for a common European foreign and defense policy to counter China, promising a business policy that would protect European and Italian companies from unfair Chinese economic practices and control foreign investment to Protect intellectual property.

In this year’s election, Berlusconi said the CCP had become a “dangerous challenge on the economic, political and military levels.”

Salvini was even more outspoken. In March 2019, during Xi’s visit to Rome and the signing of the memorandum of understanding on “Belt and Road” cooperation, Salvini, then the interior minister, even refused to meet with Xi, and refused to attend a state banquet for Xi.

Salvini warned that the CCP could “colonize” Italy. “The handling of sensitive data is a national interest. Therefore, the problem of telecommunications and data processing cannot be just an economic one.”

Later, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Salvini took a tougher stance on China. In June 2020, numerous countries called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19, and Salvini also called for “perhaps a second Nuremberg trial to determine and punish all culpability of the Chinese regime”.

A few weeks later, Salvini and other politicians organized a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Rome to protest China’s implementation of a national security law in Hong Kong.

The right-wing coalition led by Melloni, including right-wing coalition leader Matteo Salvini (pictured) and Forza leader and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, may have different attitudes on Russia. They are different, but in their attitude towards the CCP, the three are no different. (Miguel Medina/AFP)

“The Age of Innocence” three years ago

Italy’s diplomacy has traditionally focused on partnerships with the EU, the US and Mediterranean countries, but since the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the right-wing coalition formed a coalition in 2018, Italy has embarked on a radical pro-China policy.

At that time, the Italian government was eager to get out of the economic recession. Less than five months after the formation of the new government, a China Working Group was established within the Italian Ministry of Economic Development to be responsible for China affairs.

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In March 2019, Italy and the Chinese Communist Party signed a memorandum of understanding on the “Belt and Road” cooperation, becoming the first country in the Western G7 group. At that time, the Italian government also stated that Italy had a positive attitude towards the “Made in China 2025” plan and did not want to establish an investment review mechanism at the EU level.

That has angered the United States and alarmed some EU allies, who fear Beijing’s access to sensitive Western technology and key transportation hubs. A more real risk is that EU member states, including Italy, fail to place their China policy in a common framework, thereby weakening the bloc’s negotiating position.

Italy’s rapid transformation has left many people puzzled. In the past, the Italian government has also looked to China for economic opportunities, but not out of friendliness to the CCP. Italy, like France and Germany, is wary of Chinese acquisitions of strategic European sectors, and is discussing with Germany and France the establishment of an EU investment screening mechanism. The Italian ambassador to China also signed a report criticizing the Belt and Road Initiative, along with other European missions.

According to a report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), the Italian government’s new China strategy in 2018 marked a radical shift in investment, the Belt and Road Initiative and other issues.

According to the British “Times” (Times), the main driving force behind it was Michele Geraci, the then Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Italy, who lived in China for ten years and studied at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in China. He taught at the business school, and it was Geraci who persuaded the leader of the Five Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, to push the Italian government to turn to the CCP.

The Belt and Road Initiative has seriously damaged Italy’s reputation

When the “Belt and Road” memorandum in 2019 first entered the field of public debate in Italy, Italy’s understanding of the CCP was still naive and short-sighted.But after more than three years of practice, Italy has slowly shifted its stance, seeking to contain Beijing’saggressive approach

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In 2021, pro-traditional European and American alliesMarioMario Draghi’s government came to power. In just four months, the Draghi government repeatedly restricted the Chinese Communist Party’s participation in Italy’s 5G construction, blocked a Chinese company’s acquisition of an Italian semiconductor company, and terminated China’s FAW Group’s acquisition of Italy. Car manufacturer Iveco.

At this year’s G7 meeting in the West, Draghi’s government announced its agreement to a green alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative, with the G7 “broadly agreeing on the need for a more transparent alternative to the China project”.

While Italy re-emphasizes its traditional allies, it also realizes that the promises made by the CCP around 2019 have not been fulfilled. A late 2020 report by the Torino World Affairs Institute argued that “the economic rationale for signing the Belt and Road memorandum is at best optimistic and even downright false.”

In fact, most of the “Belt and Road” memorandum projects already existed before 2019, and the signing of the memorandum just added a “Belt and Road” label to the original cooperation.

The signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Italy and China on the “Belt and Road” sounded the alarm within the European Union. French President Emmanuel Macron said on March 22, 2019 that the era of European “naivety” towards the CCP is over. He said that the EU needs to come up with a unified China strategy, rather than the policies of individual countries. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The signing of the “Belt and Road” memorandum has cost Italy a heavy political price, and is regarded by the West as a “weak link in Europe” in the fight against the CCP. Not only has the United States criticized it, French President Macron has also insisted that Italy should end its “weakness to Beijing”. European naivety,” warned against “bilateral discussions on the Belt and Road agreement,” and Germany, through less public channels, raised similar concerns.

Participation in the Belt and Road Initiative has cost Italy a seat at the negotiating table. In December 2020, when the CCP was anxious for the final details of the China-EU Comprehensive Investment Agreement, Macron, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President von der Leyen and European Council President Michel attended a meeting with Xi Jinping. video conference.

But Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was left out, and Ivan Scalfarotto, then Italy’s deputy foreign minister, linked the unusual arrangement with Italy’s signing of the Belt and Road memorandum stand up. In his view, the signing of the “Belt and Road” memorandum has cost Rome its reputation as a trusted negotiating partner.

Responsible editor: Lin Yan#

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