{"id":52463,"date":"2019-03-10T14:42:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T13:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/?p=52463\/"},"modified":"2019-03-10T14:46:14","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T13:46:14","slug":"52463","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/blog\/2019\/03\/10\/52463\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy’s Conte to Sign MOU on Belt and Road During Xi Jinping’s Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Italian government has just announced it’s intention to\u00a0sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to join the Belt and Road Initiative with China when President Xi Jinping visits Italy on March 22-23.\u00a0 Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, speaking at an event in Genoa March 8th declared,<\/p>\n

“The Silk Road, is a major project of infrastructural\u00a0connectivity which offers a large availability by\u00a0 China to\u00a0promote a trade exchange and not only that. I believe that, with all necessary caution, this can be an opportunity, a chance for our country. It is an opportunity for our country system and for Europe in general.”<\/p>\n

Conte also said he promised to attend to the second Belt and\u00a0Road Forum on International Cooperation in Beijing at the end of\u00a0April. As for their U.S. ally,<\/p>\n

“we have explained that this is for us a choice of economic and trade relationships. The fact that we\u00a0are comfortably in the Atlantic Alliance and in the European system does not prevent us from making economic and trade choices\u00a0that allow us to have more opportunities.”<\/p>\n

This\u00a0wonderful news of international cooperation in major infrastructure projects, as well as joint projects in Africa, was greeted with absolute horror by the Financial Times<\/em>, the voice of the City of London, and by Garrett Marquis, a member of the US\u00a0National Security Council under John Bolton. The FT rants that China is building a “Trojan Horse” in Eastern and Central Europe\u00a0to divide and undermine the EU, ordering Italy to cease and\u00a0desist. The FT quotes Marquis that he and his neocon associates\u00a0believe the BRI to be “made in China, for China,” and that it will not bring any “sustained economic benefit to the Italian\u00a0people, and it may end up harming Italy’s global reputation in the long run.”<\/p>\n

The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to the attack on Italy’s plan to join the Belt and Road by Garrett Marquis, a long-time ally of National Security Adviser John\u00a0Bolton (who brought him onto the National Security Council).\u00a0An unsigned editorial in Global Times<\/em>, titled: “White House’s Criticism of Italy’s Plan To Join BRI Ridiculous,”<\/a>\u00a0reports that Lu Kang, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign\u00a0Affairs, at a routine press conference today, said: “Italy, as a\u00a0major country and economy in the world, is clear about its interests. It could make its own policies and decisions.”\u00a0Global Times<\/em>\u00a0added:<\/p>\n

“The BRI is an important international public good that China contributes to global cooperation for\u00a0common development. China and more than 150 countries and international organizations have signed BRI cooperation\u00a0agreements, which witnessed more than $6 trillion in cumulative\u00a0trade between China and participating countries, Yang Jiechi, a\u00a0member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China\u00a0Central Committee, said at the 55th Munich Security Conference in February, the Xinhua News Agency reported.”<\/p>\n

The FT goes on to allege that,<\/p>\n

“Italy’s support for China’s\u00a0BRI initiative would undercut U.S. pressure on China over trade\u00a0and would undermine Brussels’ efforts to overcome divisions within the EU over the best approach to deal with Chinese\u00a0investments. Italy is a founding member of the EU.”<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Italian financial\u00a0daily Il Sole 24 Ore<\/em>, Italian Undersecretary to the Economic Development Ministry rejects criticism raised by the City of\u00a0London’s Financial Times<\/em>\u00a0and defends Italy’s sovereign choice to join the Belt and Road. “Sincerely, I am a bit surprised. I do\u00a0not understand what it is, that is controversial,” Geraci said. “I confirm what I said in an interview with this newspaper last\u00a0Feb. 21st. I said the same thing to the Financial Times<\/em>: We work every day down to the last detail.<\/p>\n

“It will be a framework agreement: Just the indication of some strategic sectors in which joint investments are promoted\u00a0and orders by Italian firms are accelerated. We work on infrastructure, transport and highways, trade, industry, green\u00a0economy. It will be up to private companies to choose whether to\u00a0participate or not. If they do it, they will have guarantees in terms of protection from disputes and questions about rules.”<\/p>\n

As for the U.S. position, Geraci stated:<\/p>\n

“I wonder where\u00a0such a big concern comes from. We will protect our know-how\u00a0thanks to a ‘golden power’ rule we have in Italy, which is among the strictest in Europe. And we just fulfill demands from our\u00a0companies to create for them more room in the most promising\u00a0markets, such as China. Anyway, we have supplied the United\u00a0States, as per normal exchanges we have with our main diplomatic partners, all insurances on the issue.”<\/p>\n

On the concern about Italy being the first G7 country to\u00a0sign a New Silk Road protocol, Geraci replied:<\/p>\n

“So what? Poland,\u00a0Hungary, Portugal, Greece have done it and I do not consider them\u00a0second-class countries in Europe. Those who think differently do\u00a0not have a real European view. And the G7 club may be a somewhat outdated concept: It no longer represents the real world economic\u00a0powers, since it does not include either China or India.”<\/p>\n

Italy is not “selling out” its ports, as some have claimed,\u00a0he countered:<\/p>\n

“We do not sell, at most we give concessions to\u00a0create greenfield\u00a0 investments, which means starting from zero. You cannot sell out things that were not there in the first place.”<\/p>\n

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The Italian government has just announced it’s intention to\u00a0sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to join the Belt and Road Initiative with China when President Xi Jinping visits Italy on March 22-23.\u00a0 Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, speaking at an event in Genoa March 8th declared, “The Silk Road, is a major project of infrastructural\u00a0connectivity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":52468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,446,506],"tags":[842],"class_list":["post-52463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","category-updates-bri","category-updates-wlb","tag-lang-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52463"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52479,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52463\/revisions\/52479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}