Opinion | As Rome embraces the New Silk Road, Beijing may be turning the corner

Rome’s decision to endorse the “Belt and Road Initiative” has triggered a media and political frenzy, kindling domestic and international fears that Italy – a member of the G7 and a founding member of the European Union – is, at best, lending legitimacy to China’s mammoth connectivity project and, at worst, capitulating to China’s “debt trap” diplomacy.

Yet, the main memorandum of understanding (MOU) suggests that negotiators have couched the language of Italy-China economic cooperation in terms of well-accepted international standards (such as reciprocity, transparency, openness, environmental and financial sustainability) and within the framework of EU economic initiatives.

It is worth noting that EU officials refused to endorse China’s joint statement at its 2017 belt and road forum precisely because of a lack of reassurances on that front.

Also reassuring is a direct reference to bilateral cooperation through the multilateral Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, rather than China’s murkier policy banks – Beijing’s traditional instrument of choice in belt and road-related government financing. Since half of EU member states have already signed belt and road MOUs, Rome is making two bets.

First, Italy is betting on the initiative’s continued momentum, and Italy’s early accession will further propel acceptance of the belt and road among more mature economies. The belt and road is losing steam internationally and domestically, but it is too big to fail because it is Xi Jinping’s signature policy and is embedded in the Chinese Communist Party charter.

Second, Italy is making a concomitant and related bet: international and domestic resistance on the belt and road suggest that Beijing is softening the edges of its grand economic strategy. This MOU is, after all, the first of its kind. Careful reading of its language suggests that Italy aspires to play a bridging role, not that of a Chinese bridgehead.