Xi grants a bilateral to Meloni after the anti-Chinese positions of the FdI leader

Seoul. At his first G20 as prime minister, less than a month after his oath, Giorgia Meloni is facing a difficult test to say the least. Sources del Foglio confirm what has been circulated in recent hours by Ansa: the bilateral agreement between Meloni and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping will take place.

In Bali, Indonesia, the prime minister will therefore face a diplomatic dialogue with the American president Joe Biden and the second most powerful man in the world, Xi Jinping, in two different conversations between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The two, in these hours, are also having a bilateral – the first in attendance since Biden became president and when diplomatic relations between America and China are at an all-time low.

If the conversation with Biden will certainly be easier for Meloni, the one with the Chinese leader is complicated to say the least.

It is an anomaly in Chinese ceremonial: Xi Jinping’s leadership hardly allows the leader to sit at the table with newly elected heads of government. Because they are the ones with whom there has not been a previous dialogue, and therefore are less controllable by officials close to Xi. Yet an exception will be made for Meloni, even if, until now, the Chinese press has accounted for Xi’s meetings only with Biden, Macron and a few others, and on Weibo, the Chinese social network, Meloni is only mentioned in reference to the migrant issue.

The anomaly is even more significant when one considers Meloni’s position on China. The Prime Minister, during the election campaign, had her photograph taken with the Taiwanese ambassador to Italy – calling him that, “ambassador”, a taboo word for Beijing which considers Taiwan as its territory. Immediately before the vote in Italy, she appeared with an interview in the Taiwanese media: never happened with a candidate in the Italian elections. What’s more: after the election he used Twitter to thank the Dalai Lama for his good wishes.

Meloni’s position on China is Trumpian to say the least – perhaps also due to his previous connection with Steve Bannon, one of the ideologues of the violently anti-Chinese position of the Trump White House.

So, what will the two say to each other? The bilateral issues are partly intuitive: the Silk Road (Meloni had said to the Taiwanese press that “under these conditions he would not sign”) and bilateral relations frozen since Mario Draghi arrived at Palazzo Chigi, especially after the extension of his powers of the Golden Power for the protection of strategic Italian companies from rapacious Chinese acquisitions. It is unlikely that Meloni will be able to speak with the leader of Chinese influence in Italy, made up, among other things, of policemen and Confucius institutes: the G20 is not the right venue.

The time has come for concreteness for Melonian diplomacy.

• Giulia Pompili

• She was born on July 4th. Journalist of the sheet since 2010, she deals with the events that cross East Asia, especially Japan and Koreas, and also periodically writes about China and its relations with the rest of the world. She has a weekly newsletter called “Katane”, and is in the bookstore with “Under the same sky” (Mondadori). It is third dan of kendo.