Italy: Joining China’s Belt and Road was a poor call

ALVISE ARMELLINI

ITALY made an “improvised and atrocious” decision when it joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago as it did little to boost exports, Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto said yesterday.

Italy signed up to the BRI under a previous government, becoming the only major Western country to have taken such a step. Crosetto is part of an administration that is considering how to break free of the agreement.

The BRI scheme envisions rebuilding

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the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending, although critics see it as a tool to spread its influence.

“The decision to join the [new] Silk Road was an improvised and atrocious act” that multiplied China’s exports to Italy but did not have the same effect on Italian exports to China, Crosetto told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“The issue today is: how to walk back [from the BRI] without damaging relations [with Beijing]. Because it is true that China is a competitor, but it is also a partner,” he said.

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£ A heartening sign as I walked into the office this weekend was a crowd of construction workers busying themselves in the new City arm of The Wolseley, loosely pegged to open next month. Taking up the ground floor of the former House of Fraser at the top of London Bridge, the new iteration of one of the capital’s oldest and most feted restaurants appears to be a welcome vote of confidence in the Square Mile’s magnetism.

CAN I QUOTE YOU ON THAT?

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