[The memorandum of understanding formalized on Saturday provides a framework agreement for billions of euros in business deals between Italian and Chinese-state backed companies. But analysts said that what mattered more was its political symbolism, as it signaled waning American influence, a rising China and tensions among the founding partners of the European Union.]
By Jason Horowitz
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Prime
Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy and President Xi Jinping of China inspecting
the
honor guard during a welcome ceremony in Rome on Saturday.
Credit
Riccardo Antimiani/EPA, via Shutterstock
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ROME — Italy resisted the entreaties and warnings of
its European Union and American allies on Saturday by officially joining
China’s vast new Silk Road at a signing ceremony with President Xi Jinping of
China, a move that crystallized shifting geopolitical balances and the populist
Italian government’s willingness to break with its traditional partners.
The agreement will “build a better
relationship” between China and Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy
said.
Italy became the first of the Group of 7
nations that once dominated the global economy to take part in China’s “One
Belt One Road” project, which makes enormous infrastructure investments to move
Chinese goods and resources throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.
The Trump administration, which tried and
failed to stop the deal, focused in the days leading up to Mr. Xi’s visit on
blocking any Italian use of 5G wireless networks developed by the Chinese
electronics giant Huawei, which Washington warned could be used by Beijing to
spy on communications networks.
Against the backdrop of Italian, Chinese and
European flags, a host of Chinese and Italian ministers and business leaders
signed 29 separate agreements at the Villa Madama, marking the culmination of
Mr. Xi’s visit to Rome, where he was welcomed as a prized ally and, critics
said, conqueror.
The memorandum of understanding formalized on
Saturday provides a framework agreement for billions of euros in business deals
between Italian and Chinese-state backed companies. But analysts said that what
mattered more was its political symbolism, as it signaled waning American
influence, a rising China and tensions among the founding partners of the
European Union.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Italy’s most
powerful politician, was notably absent from the signing ceremony. In the weeks
leading up to the agreement, he publicly assumed a more American-aligned and
skeptical posture toward the deal, though he did not try to stop it. After the
deal was done, he again ridiculed the notion that China was a “free market,”
but said that as long as the deal served Italian interests, he was satisfied.
By contrast, his coalition partner, Luigi Di
Maio, the leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, championed the
deal and made several visits to China in recent months. On Saturday, he beamed
at the Villa Madama as he signed the first several agreements with Chinese
counterparts, including those explicitly declaring Italy’s participation on new
economic and maritime Silk Roads.
“Like someone in the United States said
‘America first,’” Mr. Di Maio said, “I continue to repeat ‘Italy first’ in
commercial relations.”
The Chinese leader punctuated the signings by
shaking the hand of Mr. Conte before flying off to the Sicilian capital,
Palermo, a port city that hopes to benefit from Chinese investment, tourism and
orange exports to China.
Mr. Xi, who was celebrated by the Italians with
a state dinner and cavalry escort, is likely to get a less-festive greeting on
Sunday when he visits Nice, France. President Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor
Angela Merkel of Germany and representatives of the European Union will meet
with him there and present a united front against what they consider China’s
aggressive, and troubling, economic expansion into Europe.
This past week, as Mr. Xi met with Italian
leaders, Mr. Macron announced an end to “the period of European naïveté” with
regard to China and sought to strengthen rules protecting strategic economic
sectors. They insisted on more reciprocity and transparency from China and
sought to convince Mr. Conte that he was making a critical error by joining the
One Belt One Road project.
Italy, which is saddled with crushing debt,
hopes to lift its lagging economy by exporting goods to China and inviting more
Chinese investment.
But opponents of the project in the Trump
administration and in the European Union worry that Italy has turned itself
into a Trojan Horse, allowing China’s economic — and potentially military and
political — expansion to reach into the heart of Europe.
The Italians say their allies are exaggerating.
Michele Geraci, the chief Italian negotiator of
the deal and an under secretary for economic development, said that Italy would
avoid China’s debt traps and that its laws prevent foreigners from taking
control of its ports, as China has done in Piraeus, Greece. He also argued that
Italy’s European partners, who do billions of dollars more business every year
with China, had already let them in.
“China uses the European Union as 28 Trojan
doors,” he said, referring to the number of member states in the bloc. Italy,
he said, had expanded its legal powers to defend against Chinese predatory
acquisitions, especially in sectors of national security.
“We are the country in Europe and probably the
world that would least fear a Trojan effect,” said Mr. Geraci, adding that
because he had lived in China for a decade, “I know China very well, and we are
more able than others to spot any risks.”
Even critics of the government argued that the
agreement gave Italy a chance to catch up to Germany and France, which had much
more business with China than Italy did.
“It’s a positive thing,” said former Prime
Minister Romano Prodi, who attended the state dinner for Mr. Xi on Friday
night. “It’s a competition between the countries of Europe.”
China also sees positive opportunities in
Italy’s ports, which are connected to railways that run into the heart of
Central Europe. But that is not new: The difference now is the willingness of
the Italians to let them in.
Zeno D’Agostino, the president of Trieste’s
port authority, who signed one of the agreements in Rome on Saturday, said it
was only natural that Italians would be looking to China because the Trump
administration had withdrawn from the world.
China, he said, “is opening because it feels
strong,” and a port had to do business with those who engaged in the world.
