Experts are seeing Italy’s exit from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a major jolt for China’s ambitions to extend its infrastructural capabilities to Western Europe and also see it as a major embarrassment for President Xi Jinping, especially at a time when the initiative has turned 10 years old.
Hours before landing in Beijing, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Saturday that trade between Italy and China has not improved as expected since Rome joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago. Speculation has been going around that the Italians are not happy about the future prospects of the deal.
Reaffirming this, Tajani remarked, “The Silk Road did not bring the results we expected,” at the European House Ambrosetti economic forum shortly before leaving on a trip to China. Experts are seeing Tajani’s remarks as Italians slowly distancing themselves from the Chinese’s BRI ambitions.
Notably, Italy was the first major country in Western Europe and the only one among the G7 industrial economies that became part of China’s BRI. “We will have to evaluate, and the parliament will have to decide whether or not to renew our participation,” said the Foreign Minister, while the chances of Italy renewing the BRI deal with China are highly skimmed, reported news agency Reuters.