Italy to join China's Belt and Road initiative over US worry

From ABC News


Premier Giuseppe Conte pledged Tuesday to make Italy the first Group of Seven nation to join China's ambitious Belt and Road initiative, despite objections from the United States and concerns within his governing coalition.

Speaking to parliament, Conte said that Italy's signing of a memorandum of understanding for the infrastructure-building venture, which is due to happen during the Chinese premier's visit this week, would not "in the least" put into question Italy's position within the strategic trans-Atlantic alliance or with European partners.

Italy's signature would be considered a major legitimation of the project that envisions overland and maritime routes connecting China with Europe. A White House official has warned Italy against joining, calling it a Chinese "vanity project."

European governments declined to sign a joint declaration on the "Belt and Road" at a forum last year in Beijing. They argued it lacked standards on financing and transparency.

COMMENT:-

The belt and road notion of the grandiose Xi is a classically Chinese grandiose fantasy across Asia to Europe that is stillborn. India is against it, Iran doesn't want it, the EU says Beijing must meet its international standards of market economy rules and international banking standards among other requirements Beijing cannot meet.

Virtually every country across Asia sees a Beijing debt trap designed to take control of national economies while Chinese swarm in to do the construction by Chinese state infrastructure corporations that have decreased opportunities in China. China needs desperately to migrate its overpopulation choking of irrreversibly polluted land, water, air. Chinese need to go somewhere else and the belt and road would take 'em there. Except it's going nowhere.

Indeed Xi's failure to get the belt fastened from Beijing to London is hurting him domestically where the population increasingly sees Xi and the Party-Government as blowhards who make pie in the sky promises they aren't delivering on because they can't.


Take a good look at this classically Chinese fantasy of greatness because it's all anyone will ever see of it.




Industry Minister Michele Geraci said that if Italy did sign a deal when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the country later this month, it would be non-binding and just "an initial framework".

Geraci told a news conference, "We are still negotiating the details of the MOU and it might, or might not be signed," Geraci said. "It is an initial framework. It is not a contract, there are no commitments, there are no funds and no obligations." Italy fell into recession at the end of 2018 for the third time in a decade and the government is eager to find ways to boost the economy and revive the stalled construction sector.

"We view BRI as a 'made by China, for China' initiative," the newspaper quoted Garrett Marquis, White House National Security Council spokesperson, as saying.

An Italian diplomatic source told Reuters that if an accord was reached it would be "an empty box". A number of European Union states have already signed MOUs with China, including Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Poland and Portugal. If Italy signs it would be the first Group of Seven major industrialised nation to do so.

An EU spokesperson in Brussels said the EU was cooperating with Beijing on the initiative, but added that this was "on the basis of China fulfilling its declared aim of making it an open platform which adheres to market rules, EU and international requirements and standards". Past EU optimism over dealing with China has turned to frustration over Beijing's slowness to open up its economy and a surge of Chinese takeovers in critical sectors. There has also been pressure from the United States to shun China over espionage fears.

UPDATE 2-Italy aims to sign preliminary Belt and Road deal with China | Devdiscourse News


As to the US winning WW 2 and Italy losing blah blah that's a cultural cliche' in the mind of the socially deficient and intellectually glib.

Tangmo said:

The belt and road notion of the grandiose Xi is a classically Chinese grandiose fantasy across Asia to Europe that is stillborn. India is against it, Iran doesn't want it, the EU says Beijing must meet its international standards of market economy rules and international banking standards among other requirements Beijing cannot meet.

Click to expand...

The issue isn't so much whether the Chinese proposal will work as it is that the US government has told Italy NOT to sign on to it and the Italian government isn't obeying.

Tangmo said:

As to the US winning WW 2 and Italy losing blah blah that's a cultural cliche' in the mind of the socially deficient and intellectually glib.

Click to expand...

It is a fact that the United States of America, allied with Germany, defeated Russia, Italy, and Japan in WWII while the rest of the world stood by and did nothing to help the US repel the Communist invasion of Europe and attack on Perl Harbur. Since the US defeated Italy in WWII, that means that the US government has the absolute legal right to tell the so-called "Italian" so-called "government" what to do and to take whatever steps the President of the United States of America fells like taking when the so-called "Italians" do not do what their masters tell them to do.

[The second response paragraph above has been approved by "Devoted Online Lovers of Trump" Inc.]

TU Curmudgeon said:

The issue isn't so much whether the Chinese proposal will work as it is that the US government has told Italy NOT to sign on to it and the Italian government isn't obeying.

Click to expand...

That Xi's belt and road is stillborn is integral to the US argument to Italy not to go near it.

It is a fact that the United States of America, allied with Germany, defeated Russia, Italy, and Japan in WWII while the rest of the world stood by and did nothing to help the US repel the Communist invasion of Europe and attack on Perl Harbur. Since the US defeated Italy in WWII, that means that the US government has the absolute legal right to tell the so-called "Italian" so-called "government" what to do and to take whatever steps the President of the United States of America fells like taking when the so-called "Italians" do not do what their masters tell them to do.

[The second response paragraph above has been approved by "Devoted Online Lovers of Trump" Inc.]

Click to expand...

There must be a thread I've likely overlooked and for good reason where silliness is the rule. Whether seriously or jovially. I haven't any time or inclination for it here. You might consider posting only to people in Mississippi and Arkansas where you will be taken seriously and can get the arguements you seek, want, need.

Tangmo said:

That Xi's belt and road is stillborn is integral to the US argument to Italy not to go near it.

Click to expand...

The US government is NOT telling the Italians that they SHOULD NOT "go near" the Chinese proposal.

The US government IS telling the Italians that they MUST NOT "go near" the Chinese proposal (and that it will take retaliatory action against Italy if it does).

There is a "minor" difference between those two.





There must be a thread I've likely overlooked and for good reason where silliness is the rule. Whether seriously or jovially. I haven't any time or inclination for it here. You might consider posting only to people in Mississippi and Arkansas where you will be taken seriously and can get the arguements you seek, want, need.[/QUOTE]