China has asked Italy to play a “constructive role” in promoting a “positive and stable” relationship with Europe during Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s visit to Beijing.
“It is hoped that Italy will understand and support China’s development philosophy and play a constructive role in promoting enhanced dialogue and cooperation between China and the European Union,” President Xi Jinping told Meloni.
He added: “China and Italy, as two ends of the ancient Silk Road, have a long history of interaction that has made a significant contribution to the interaction between Chinese and Western civilisations.”
He also expressed a wish for better economic cooperation in areas such as electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.
“In the era of economic globalisation, only by maintaining open cooperation in global industrial and supply chains can we achieve win-win development,” he said.
During Meloni’s visit the two countries signed a three-year action plan and six deals covering areas such as agriculture, the environment and education.
The Italian leader also met Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who told her that the country was willing to deepen cooperation with Italy in various fields, including “shipbuilding, aerospace, artificial intelligence and new energy” – all areas of concern for Nato and the European Union.
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The Italian leader has been a vocal critic of China in the past, and last year pulled the country out of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s transcontinental infrastructure plan.
Before the trip she said she wanted “fairer” trade relations with China and told the Italian trade delegation who attended her visit that she wanted to see the investment gap between the two nations “narrowed in the right way”.
She has also backed the European Union’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 37.6 per cent on Chinese electric vehicle imports.
The trade deficit between the countries, which the Italian foreign ministry said rose by €22.3 billion (US$24.1 billion) between 2019 and 2022 and reached €40 billion last year, is a cause of growing concern in Italy.
However, during the visit Meloni told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV that Italy wanted to “develop a closer and higher-level partnership with China” and cooperate in areas such as green energy and biomedicine.
The withdrawal from the Belt and Road Initiative received a muted reaction from Beijing and Italy was one of the first European countries to be included in the visa-free travel initiative.
Her visit comes as the European Commission is seeking to reduce its economic reliance on China, but diplomatic observers said individual EU member states were still keen to engage.
Nicola Casarini, a senior Asia fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, said: “Meloni’s visit to China will be a message to the European Commission to be less hawkish in its relations with the Asian giant, a stance that will be certainly supported by Hungary, which holds the presidency of the EU until year-end.”
He said Chinese leaders were also keen on “relaunching relations with European countries” and the three-year deal between the two countries had “been devised as a way to repair China-Italy ties” after the exit from the Belt and Road Initiative.
Sebastian Contin Trillo-Figueroa, a former Asia global fellow specialising in European studies at the University of Hong Kong, said the newly signed three-year partnership plan between the two countries was a “rebranding effort” and would only work if the economic imbalance was addressed.
“It remains to be seen how Italian businesses can invest more effectively in China, given the existing barriers for all European companies, especially in the services sector,” he added.
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Wilson Chan Wai-Shun, a specialist in European studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said it was “well known” that Meloni “is more pro-Western as well as pro-Nato in terms of security issues” but wanted to maintain good relations with China.
“In terms of the economic relationship, she will be much more pragmatic, or actually more investment focused, but in terms of politics or foreign policies, I think she will still make herself aligned with the general direction of the West,” Chan said.
