from the “super fighter” to the new sanctions against Russia, this is what he will say to Hiroshima-Corriere.it

FROM OUR REPORTER
HIROSHIMA — The G7 that starts tomorrow Hiroshima will in some way seal the foreign policy it has chosen and which according to some it was forced to endorse. In Europe the nuances are different, Paris and Madrid push it in alternating waves towards the countries of Visegrad, all EU members are watching each other with great circumspection in view of next year’s elections, she herself has become a sort of benchmark, the continental bogeyman of the possible rise of the right in the Old Continent.

Giorgia Meloni arrived in Hiroshima a few hours ago, directly from Iceland, where she participated in the Council of Europe. Her first appointment today will be a bilateral meeting with the landlord, Japanese premier Fumio Kishida. The summit starts tomorrow morning and will be its first G7: it is not a debut in an important international forum, but it is certainly the debut in the main Western summit, in the control room of what are recognized as the best and freest democracies in the world.

It is perhaps a staid formula, not for nothing in Japan there will be as many as 8 countries of the so-called “outreach”, invited for specific roles, but it is still the most noble club that exists in international diplomacy: last year in Germany it was decided that Kiev would be massively protected with the weapons of the West, here in Japan we need to maintain unity, send a message to China, deal with what the technicians call the “Global South”.

The prime minister will make eight speeches in three days, following the outline of a very busy meticulous programme (the Japanese got so stressed that their sherpa ended up hospitalized): he will reiterate his absolute alignment with Washington, he will give the green light to any request that will come from Zelensky (which will be connected on video or perhaps will arrive by surprise) and which will be endorsed by Biden, he will have the time and means of yet another clarification with Macron after the constant unpleasant words of some of his ministers against the Italian government.

Finally, he will have a specific role in explaining to his colleagues a project that has practically enormous geopolitical repercussions: the sixth generation military fighter project between Italy, Great Britain and Japan, that Tempest which in the next 10 years will integrate the best military, electronic and engineering technologies existing on the market and which is a significant piece of the change in the weight that the Indo Pacific is given by European countries. A project on which chains of command between the British, Italians and Japanese and the headquarters of the consortium have yet to be decided, perhaps useful topics in the course of the bilateral agreement with Kishida.

The heart of the summit will certainly be China: the warning of the 7, and therefore also of Meloni, on the defense of Taiwan, the promise of commercial de-risking that the EU is developing by releasing pieces of the Union’s digital and technological dependence Beijing, one of the warhorses for the Prime Minister, for which we must defend ourselves first of all from the coercive practices of the Chinese economy. Today Europe exchanges 2.7 billion a day with Beijing, but digital addiction is no longer sustainable (larger than we had from Russian gas) that we are forced to suffer.

A 12-month road map will be decided in Hiroshima which will apply to further sanctions on Russia, the commercial closure of the taps of excellent military technologies and materials to Beijing, about the amount of military supplies going to Kiev, about the future of Ukraine itself, primarily in the process of integration towards the European Union. For each of these dossiers Meloni will have his say, but no significant distinctions are announced. It is the debut in a club, but it is also the almost total sharing of the G7 strategies and programme.

But Italy’s role, in this very much aligned with Tokyo, will also be that of defense attorney for the states of the so-called “Global South”, all the developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America. “Either we help them or we leave the field open to China and Russia”, is the thought of the prime minister, who will make this slogan one of the key points of the G7 which from January 1 next year it will be up to Italy to preside.

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