Italy’s prospective PM Meloni poised to shake up ties with China
- Timing of far-right leader’s statement partly intended to send a message to Nato, the US and the EU about Italy’s future foreign policies, says analyst
- Meloni described Italy’s embrace of belt and road programme in 2019 as ‘a big mistake’, hinting that the MOU was not likely to be renewed in 2024
A right-wing coalition led by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neo-fascist origins on the radical right, won a decisive 44 per cent of the vote on Monday, positioning her to become the first woman prime minister of the third-biggest economy in Europe, with control of both the senate and the chamber of deputies.
Rome and Beijing have for years maintained a lukewarm relationship, but that may be shaken up by Meloni, who made her aversion to China clear as early as 2008 when, as sports minister, she called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics over China’s policies in Tibet while advocating for an international mobilisation in favour of separatists.
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“This is unacceptable conduct by Beijing, a conduct that we strongly condemn, together with all the democracies of the free world,” Meloni said in an interview with Taiwan’s Central News Agency in which she urged the European Union to “deploy all the political and diplomatic weapons at its disposal” and apply “pressure as hard as possible” to prevent regional conflict.
“Let us not forget that the EU is also a key outlet market for China, which risks being closed if they decide to attack Taiwan,” she said in the first interview granted to the Taiwanese outlet by an Italian political leader.
Meloni also criticised Beijing over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong and its “ambiguous stance” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The timing of Meloni’s statement is, in part, intended to send a message to Nato, the US and the European Union about Italy’s future foreign policies, according to Enrico Fardella, director of the ChinaMed Project, the University of Turin’s research platform focused on China’s geoeconomic relations with countries in the wider Mediterranean region.
“If she becomes the new prime minister, these views will certainly inspire the new course of Italian foreign policy towards China,” Fardella said.
“But they will be translated into softer tones that traditionally characterise the approach of Italian diplomacy, which will allow Italy’s position on these issues to be more clear cut, but without being necessarily confrontational.”
Joining a united front against China may be a key area of cooperation between Italy’s first hard-right government since World War II and its largely centre or centre-left neighbours, who are critical of Meloni’s views on civil liberties. Critics have accused her of xenophobia, homophobia and Islamophobia.
“Meloni will be certainly met by strong political opposition, both within Europe and Italy, but it will be mostly linked to her domestic policies and her attempt to be more assertive towards the EU,” Fardella said.
“However, a critical stance towards China has become quite shared among most of the political forces in Italy and in the EU, and it can function as a balancer of [Meloni’s other] more controversial positions.”
In 2019, Italy became the only Group of 7 member to sign a memorandum of understanding on the belt and road programme, Beijing’s global project to develop trade routes across Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe.
But Meloni described Italy’s embrace of the plan as “a big mistake”, hinting that the MOU was not likely to be renewed in 2024.
“One thing she recently stated is that, at the moment, she finds it difficult to predict the political conditions for the renewal,” said Giulia Sciorati, associate research fellow at Milan-based Asia Centre at the Institute for International Political Studies.
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Sciorati cited voiced criticism of the document, concerns over democracy and human rights issues in China and the discontent of other EU countries and institutions towards renewing the document as influential factors in the 2024 decision.
Meloni said her government would work to limit China’s economic expansion and ensure that less-developed countries had an alternative to “Chinese penetration” through the Belt and Road Initiative. She would prioritise developing the Global Gateway – the EU initiative to invest in global infrastructure development until 2027.
“This discourse reiterates a central topos of US discourse on the [Belt and Road Initiative] – that is, the willingness to offer developing countries alternative financing routes to China,” Sciorati said, adding that whether Italy pursued this alone or with its counterparts was yet to be determined.
European Union pushing to increase ties in Pacific
In response to the results of the election, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed its hope for the two countries to further ties as “comprehensive strategic partners”.
“We hope the new Italian government will continue to follow a positive and practical policy on China, work with China in the spirit of mutual respect, mutual trust and mutual benefit to deepen cooperation and people-to-people exchanges for the good of the two countries and two peoples,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday.
