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Italy’s right-wing Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni returned from recent talks with US President Joe Biden that included discussions of how to distance her country from tight economic ties with China.

The discussion was part of NATO’s efforts to “de-risk” – that is, reduce – economic activity with Beijing.

Meloni let it be known she was working to cancel Italy’s participation in China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative, the trade and infrastructure partnerships that Rome joined four years ago. Meloni indicated Rome could somehow maintain “good relations with China” even as it dropped Belt and Road.

One of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy programs, Belt and Road drives relations with countries from the Pacific to Africa and, in Italy’s case, into Europe.

No sooner had Meloni returned to Rome from Washington than her defense minister, Guido Crosetto, described Italy’s Belt and Road participation as “improvised and atrocious.”

“The issue today is: how to walk back without damaging relations, because it is true that China is a competitor, but it is also a partner,” Crosetto said.

The Meloni-Crosetto diplomatic duet mirrored Biden’s tricky two-track strategy of dealings with China, which he regards as a combined economic powerhouse and military threat. Washington’s policy couples apparently benign cooperation on issues like trade and carbon emissions reduction with an adversarial approach toward what the US and allies call China’s international “coercive behavior” and challenge to “the rules-based international order.”

Meloni, for example, expressed hopes that benign post-Belt and Road relations with Beijing will continue. But she also steered clear of touting Italy’s other China policy feature: entry into the anti-China arms race. Italy joined the United Kingdom in a partnership with Japan to develop new fighter jets.

It was the first time since World War II that Japan partnered with militaries other than the United States. Tokyo had become alarmed at what it sees as China’s aggressive posture toward uniting Taiwan with the mainland, its unilateral occupation of island outcroppings in the South China Sea and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Japan is undergoing a massive weapons development program.

Because the UK and Italy both belong to NATO, China complained about the alliance’s expansion to its shores. In June, Beijing’s mission to the European Union said China opposes “eastward movement into the Asia-Pacific region” by NATO.

“Any act that jeopardizes China’s legitimate rights and interests will be met with a resolute response,” the diplomatic note said.

The official Xinhua news agency chimed in and called NATO a “grave challenge” to global peace. “NATO is spreading its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific region with an express aim of containing China,” Xinhua asserted.

‘NATO is spreading its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific region with an express aim of containing China.’

Xinhua

Italy’s bifurcated policy toward China mirrors the ongoing one that Joe Biden is trying to practice. High-visibility dispatches of US officials to Beijing this spring and into summer exemplified the effort to find common ground on some issues while, at the same time, the US puts into place its long-planned military “pivot” to Asia.

In early July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with Chinese trade counterpart in Beijing to discuss economic disagreements. She said economic competition between the US and China ought not be a “winner-take-all” contest. Chinese officials, on the other hand, made a specific demand: the US must remove sanctions recently placed on Chinese companies.

Shortly after Yellen’s visit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken “had candid and constructive discussions on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues” with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi. According to a State Department report on the meeting, Wang told Blinken the US must “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and compromising China’s sovereignty” – an apparent reference to Washington’s efforts to shore up Taiwan’s defenses against Chinese military pressure.

Wang also said the US ought also to stop “suppressing China’s economy, trade and technology.” That complain centered on obstacles to technology transfers to China and sanctioning of Chinese companies.

US climate change envoy John Kerry then arrived to encourage cooperation to reduce carbon emissions. China appeared reluctant to join hands in the effort; while Kerry was visiting, President Xi Jinping told officials at a climate conference that China’s reduction of carbon emissions “must be determined by the country itself rather than swayed by others.”

In contrast to these cold official meetings, China rather warmly greeted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who made a surprise visit to Beijing. His diplomacy opened the way for relations between the People’s Republic and the US more than 50 years ago.

Kissinger was provided a lavish luncheon with Xi, who urged the 100-year old visitor to play a role in getting bilateral relations on track.

Prior to all this outreach, the Biden administration has been feverishly working to construct interconnected military relationships in the seas bordering China:

• The US renewed a program of military cooperation along with Britain and Australia, in which Australia is slated to construct and host nuclear submarines.

• Washington also revived a moribund grouping known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, involving the US, India, Australia and Japan – to discuss defense issues.

• Another grouping known as the Asia-Pacific Four, made up of Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand, began to exhibit signs of being a branch of NATO. Its members have attended the past two NATO summits.

• The Philippines recently increased the number of nominally temporary military camps for US use from five to nine. The US closed its Cold War-era military bases in the Philippines in 1992.

This necklace of military relationships does not constitute an alliance in the style of NATO, in which members pledge by treaty to defend each other in case of attack. Still, China views it all as an effort to hem it in militarily. And it has responded by sending an aircraft carrier beyond the coastal China Seas into areas generally patrolled by US ships and by transferring jet bombers from land to both its operating carriers; a third newly built ship is soon to come into operation.

Beijing has island-hopped beyond its coastline. Last year, it signed a pact with the Solomon Islands, an archipelago northeast of Australia. According to a leaked secret document, under the deal the Solomons government “may request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces” and that Beijing could also send ships for stopovers and to resupply.

Despite this foray into a distant outpost, China’s attention appears focused on Taiwan and the possibility of invading it to forcibly join the island to the mainland. In April, China held naval and air maneuvers in which its forces surrounded Taiwan to secure control of “the seas, air and information” and to simulate precision strikes on “key targets.”  

As for Italy, Beijing seems unready to give up on its once promising economic partnership, as exemplified by Belt and Road. Michel Geraci, an Italian politician who favors close relations with China, wrote in China’s English-language China Daily newspaper that Meloni would err in dumping Belt and Road.

Instead, he advised Meloni to focus on making changes in the Belt and Road deal “to put emphasis on stronger cooperation with China on climate action, peace and security, and Africa’s development.”

All of these issues are of greater interest to members of Meloni’s coalition partners who are unconcerned about China’s growing influence and power.

In short, Geraci thinks Meloni needs to embrace benign, non-security related issues with China and dump Biden’s concerns about China’s military power.

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