Excerpt
Italy Defies West As It Officially Joins China's "Neocolonial Project"
With Brussels and Washington helplessly looking on, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Italian Prime Minister signed a historic memorandum of understanding Saturday morning in Rome that made Italy the first founding EU member, and the first G-7 nation, to officially sign on to Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" economic development initiative - one of President Xi Jinping's signature ventures which many have called China's shadow project to re-colonize the world's poorer nations.
Along with the MoU, the two leaders signed development deals covering everything from port management, to science and technology, to e-commerce to soccer that were reportedly worth up to $20 billion.
Though OBOR (or BRI) has promised to strengthen trade links between the West and East, it has been derided in Washington and Europe as "debt trap diplomacy" and a neocolonial project by Vice President Mike Pence, and others.
Xi's trip to Italy, the first leg on a six-day European tour, coincided with Brussels' decision to take a more hard-line stance against the Chinese. During a review of its China policy last week, the European Union proposed "10 actions" to member states, including requiring "reciprocity" for market access, and highlighting purported national security risks stemming from Chinese investment in "critical assets, technologies and infrastructure."
Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission and Brussels' unelected bureaucrat-in-chief, described China as a "competitor, a partner, a rival," during remarks on Friday.
In what appears to be a bid to assuage the growing trepidation in Brussels over China's strengthening ties with Italy, and several eastern and central European states, Xi has reportedly asked Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to join him during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron planned for Tuesday.
Meanwhile, to commemorate China's first colonial anchor in continental Europe, during a press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Friday, Xi said "both countries should strengthen cooperation in infrastructure, ports and logistics, maritime transportation and other areas, so that the great potential can be realized."
Among the 30 or so agreements signed were two port management deals between China Communications Construction and the ports of Trieste, situated in the northern Adriatic Sea, and Genoa, Italy’s biggest seaport. While Genoa is a long-established port, Trieste has the most potential for China, Italian government sources earlier told the South China Morning Post.
The port is strategically important for China because it offers a link from the Mediterranean to landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Serbia, all of which are markets Beijing hopes to reach through its belt and road programme.
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