Silk Road, axis with the USA. Italy has already chosen to exit Corriere.it

The new Italian ambassador arrived in Beijing a few hours ago, Massimo Ambrosetti. Giorgia Meloni chose him, contrary to expectations, for two reasons: a great one cybersecurity expert and boasts highly respected academic studies, including a Phd in Cambridge, on China and the economic rise of the giant led by Xi Jinping. Ambrosetti greeted his colleagues at the Farnesina sharing two impressions relating to one of the most delicate dossiers he will have to manage: Italy has already decided to exit the controversial trade agreement with the Chinese signed under the Conte I governmentthe Americans have been informed of this.

Less than twenty days from G7 in Tokyowhere the leaders will discuss Western relations with Beijing at length, the decision that Meloni will have to take by the end of the year returns to the fore: remain or not within the Memorandum which links Italy, the only G7 country, to the

Belt and Road Initiative
of the Chinese (Bri). To get out of it, Rome will have to give one canceled by December and some journalistic indiscretions tell of one increasingly strong pressure from Washington on Palazzo Chigi.

Rivers of ink have been written on the Bri. From different angles. a Trojan horse of Chinese commercial aims, according to detractors. state a false step of Gentiloni (who was the first to adhere to the idea) and Conte, moreover put in black and white by the second with a technical oversight of weight (the obligation of a cancellation instead of the simpler lack of an automatic renewal), according to the vulgate in the current government. one of conditions (the Italian cancellation) of a serene relationship between Giorgia Meloni and Joe Biden, who will receive her at the White House in June.

According to the results of the Courierin any case, there is no American pressure for a simple reason: for some months now, periodic interlocutions between the staffs of the two presidents, including official and unofficial visits, have the BRI dossier at the center of the discussion. And in the White House they know very well, because they were somehow guaranteed, that the problem is not the if but the when, and of course this Meloni will decide itmaybe during the visit to Beijingbefore the end of the year.

The periodic comparison between Rome and Washingtonboth at the governmental and security apparatus level, since the premier took office, he has been traveling on the construction of a facing out from the agreement taken by both interlocutors for granted. The Memorandum under the Draghi government remained frozen and still is.

Unless Giorgia Meloni changes her mind, there will be one to be built parachute of security in order not to compromise the our relations with Beijingbut always in our government that takes a consideration of substance, not of form: Macron not entered the BRI, but does business on strategic technologies with the Chinese. And therefore it is said that Xi Jinping cannot give up having Italy as the democratic flagship within his great project, if he had the substantial counterparts.

There is another dossier that Meloni has had to manage in the last few hours: during the premier’s visit to London Rishi Sunak asked for support to strengthen the candidacy of his defense minister, Ben Wallace, to the future leadership of NATO. The Prime Minister has registered the request, but nothing more, the European allies are currently examining different profiles: from the Finnish Sanna Marin to the Estonian premier Kaja Kallasup to the Dutch premier Mark Rutte. While on paper Ursula von der Leyenit seems that Berlin prefers the wishes of the presidents of the European Commission to be reconfirmed in her role.