A senior Italian minister sent the strongest on-record signal yet that Italy will rescind a controversial investment pact with China.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, a close ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said in an interview Sunday with Corriere della Sera that Italy must “get out” of the China pact “without creating a disaster.”
Italy is the only Group of Seven country that has signed up to Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, and the alliance is due to renew automatically at the end of the year unless Italy abandons it. Bloomberg has reported that Italian officials have reassured the US that Rome will exit the pact, but Meloni refrained from any public announcement in a visit to the US earlier this week.
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“Our national interest means also having a dialog with Beijing and one can have good trade relations independently from the Belt and Road,” Meloni said in an interview on Canale 5 television after returning from Washington. “The issue is finding the right balance.”
Italy signed up to the pact in 2019 under China-friendly premier Giuseppe Conte. Meloni now faces the challenge of disentangling herself from an alliance that’s brought little — if any — economic advantage, without sparking a diplomatic crisis with Beijing. She said she is planning to visit China.
Signing up to the pact “was a reckless and improvised action by Giuseppe Conte’s government,” Crosetto said in the interview Sunday.
“We just exported some oranges to China,” he added referring to a symbolic shipment that followed Xi’s visit to Italy for the signing of the agreement, “while they have tripled exports to Italy in three years.”
