Meloni goes to China: face-to-face with Xi and new partnership after Silk Road

A year after her mission to Washington, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is preparing to make her first official visit to the People's Republic of China in response to an invitation extended to her by President Xi Jinping in Bali at the G20 in November 2022. Just a few months before Italy's exit from the New Silk Road at the end of 2023, the prime minister, from 27 to 31 July, will have numerous engagements between Beijing (such as the seventh Italy-China Business Forum) and Shanghai, in the year that celebrates the seven centuries since Marco Polo's death, Li Madou according to the Mandarin name of the Venetian traveller, capable together with another Italian, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, of building a solid bridge between East and West. An indelible legacy, which is also recognised by today's Dragon.

China and Italy are countries "of long civilisation linked by a comprehensive and strategic partnership," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning noted when formalising the mission, recalling that the 20th anniversary of the bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Partnership falls in 2024. Therefore, the "healthy and stable development of China-Italy relations is in line with the common interests of both nations" and Beijing is ready to seize the visit "as an opportunity to strengthen understanding and trust, deepen practical cooperation and advance Sino-Italian and Sino-European relations on a long-term path".

The premier will have a face-to-face meeting with President Xi, and meetings with her counterpart Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, head of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the legislative branch of China's parliament. In the talks with the top institutional figures, who are also at the top of the Communist Party, "the parties will exchange views on issues related to bilateral relations and of common interest," Mao said, emphasising the enhancement of the Silk Road spirit" between "concrete cooperation and humanistic exchanges.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had visited Beijing last year and seen his counterpart Wang Yi, who had described cooperation with Italy as 'fruitful'. Despite the withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative (Bri), the ambitious project launched by Xi in 2013, Tajani recently reiterated that Rome wants to strengthen trade ties: "Our relations with China are positive, even though we are competitors and our positions diverge on some issues," he said, stressing that the withdrawal from the infrastructure initiative "was not an act of hostility" against Beijing.

In June, the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso led a mission to Beijing to 'make significant progress on industrial partnerships'. Meloni's visit will tell whether the time is ripe for agreements, starting with the electric car. On the Chinese side, with trade relations with Brussels deteriorating and the Dragon now perceived more than 'a strategic and systemic rival', relations with individual states are an opportunity.