Italy would become the first Group of 7 nation to officially join China’s vast One Belt One Road project on Saturday, a sign of Beijing’s growing influence.
ROME — A cavalry escort usually reserved for royals. A tour of the Coliseum and a visit to the ancient Capitoline Hill. A performance by Andrea Bocelli in a presidential palace that once housed popes.
The warm welcome President Xi Jinping of China received in Rome on Friday was that of an exalted ally — or as critics say, a conqueror — as he began a visit that will culminate on Saturday with the signing of Italy’s official agreement to participate in China’s vast Belt and Road infrastructure project.
In doing so, Italy will become the first member of the Group of 7 nations that have long dominated the global economy to take part in the project, a sign of how a rising China is reshaping the world’s economic and geopolitical order.
“The ancient Silk Road was a tool of knowledge among people and to share mutual discoveries,” President Sergio Mattarella of Italy said Friday morning, standing next to Mr. Xi at the Quirinal Palace. “The new one must also be a two-way street.”
Mr. Mattarella also urged the Chinese to help protect the environment and show “respect for the rules of the market,” something that many critics of China have said it flagrantly ignores.
Mr. Xi thanked Italy for its “deep friendship” and spoke about the importance of “revitalizing the ancient Silk Road,” strengthening ties and developing a “series of concrete projects” together. He assured the Italians, who are desperate to open Chinese markets to Italian goods, that he wanted a “commercial exchange that goes both ways and a flow of investments that goes both ways.”
The tightening relationship between China and Italy has worried American officials, who have tried and failed to stop the deal, expressing concern that China’s economic expansion is a precursor to military and political ambitions. When it became clear that Italy would nevertheless sign the deal, the American ambassador in Italy and other officials instead tried to convince Italy not to use 5G wireless networks developed by the Chinese electronics giant Huawei, which Washington warns could be used by Beijing to spy on communications networks.
Leaders of the European Union in Brussels have also raised fears that Italy — saddled by debt, and tempted by promises of hundreds of millions of euros in infrastructure investment — could fall prey to a Chinese divide-and-conquer strategy. And critics of the Italian government have called the deal yet another example of its dangerous naïveté and incompetence.
