Whither strategic partnership?
Assessing Italy's relations with China over the past decade
Giovanni B. Andornino1
Assistant professor of International Relations of East Asia
Dept. of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Torino
[email protected]
ABSTRACT – This paper offers a critical evaluation of the first decade of
“strategic partnership” between Italy and China, assessing the key rationales
underpinning the bilateral relation in light of the progressive re-nationalization of
China’s engagement with Europe. Adopting a foreign policy analysis approach,
and based on a comprehensive body of empirical evidence, the paper examines
the dynamics of asymmetrical competition and asynchronous opportunity
generation characterizing bilateral trade – the cornerstone of reciprocal interest in
sustained interaction – and discusses the structural limitations imposed on the
strategic ambitions of Italy’s China policy by unsteady political resolve, diffuse
social distrust, constrained institutional resources, and scarcely entrenched
epistemic communities.
Paper presented to the SISP annual conference: Florence, 12-14 September 2013.
Draft. Please do not quote without author’s permission.
1 Current relations between Italy and China are heir to a unique pattern of exchanges of
ideas as well as private, public, and symbolic goods. Contrary to the dynamics – and
narratives – of China’s encounters with other Western powers, which induced
transformations in Chinese institutions and society through often violent competition,
Italian intercourse with traditional and modern China has been largely immune to
geopolitical rivalry and confrontation.
Perhaps revealingly, among the hundreds of bas-reliefs decorating the Chinese
Millennium Monument (zhonghua shijitan), a focal testimony to the nation’s
rejuvenation project now purposefully brought forward by the “fifth generation” of
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders2, the only two scenes depicting foreign
figures commemorate legendary encounters with Italians ante litteram. One portrays
Venetian merchant Marco Polo’s (1254−1324) acquaintance with Kublai Khan’s
(1215−1294) Yuan Empire; the other shows Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–
1610) dwelling in Ming Emperor Wan Li’s (1573–1620) domains. Venetian and
Genoese ships were indeed pivotal in connecting Europe with the far more advanced
Sino-Arabic commercial circuits in the Thirteenth century 3 , and Polo remains
emblematic in the rhetorical trope of a now revived Silk Road connecting China with
its largest trade partner, Europe. Alongside routes opened for the exchange of private
goods – critical in the early phase of Western engagement with Imperial China4 –,
avenues for the exchange of ideas would be brokered by European missionaries,
among whom Jesuits from the Italian cities of Macerata, Trento and Milan (to cite but
a few paradigmatic examples) pioneered intellectual exchanges with the Chinese
élites in fields as diverse as mathematics, astronomy, geography, history, art and
methodology, touching upon issues that would be at the core of traditional China’s
deconstruction and transition to modernity.
With the unraveling of political and social structures in pre-modern Italy and China,
ideational exchange and juxtaposition between the two would-be nations – while
affected by the inevitable prospective distortions of any mirror-image mechanism –
did not cease to be influential at key historical junctures. China became a term of
comparison in the milieu of the Italian Enlightenment, featuring as a “dialectical
other” in the process of germination of a social and civic conscience in Italy5. Chinese
intellectuals, on their part, were inspired by the Risorgimento, the Nineteenth-century
movement for Italian unification, which was projected inside China’s political debate
as leading reformist Liang Qichao (1873–1929) produced a biographical study of the
key figures of this movement (Mazzini, Cavour and Garibaldi) and a play – Xin
Luoma (The new Rome, 1902) – in which he used the voice of another iconic Italian,
Dante, to stir the heroic spirit of the Chinese people on the path to national liberation6.
According to Liang, “only Italy presents some aspects similar to today’s China,
especially if one considers its plight before the achievement of its national
unification”7.
Fascism too exerted significant cultural influence on Republican China first and,
ostensibly a contrario, on the PRC afterwards, when the word was used as label for
the arch-enemies of the newly-founded state. Chiang Kai-shek has been described as
an “enthusiastic admirer of fascism,” deliberately attempting to create a fascist China
using the ideology of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany8. Other interpretations
differ, arguing that it was not Mussolini’s fascist principles per se (and certainly not
qua Italian) that inspired Chiang's actions, but rather the relatively indeterminate set
2 of modern instrumentalities employed by Italian fascists first, and later replicated
elsewhere in Europe. In this sense, Nationalist China’s ends remained defined by
Chiang’s conservative reading of Sun Yat-sen’s Sanmin zhuyi (Three principles of the
people), and the kind of inspiration that was drawn from Italy’s fascist movement had
more to do with the means by which to organize society so as to achieve China’s own
peculiar aims9. Some of these eminently modern means endured past Chiang’s defeat,
and retained their value in the subsequent push for socialist modernization.
Following the hiatus determined by the dislocations of the Second world war and the
early logics of the Cold war, which saw Italy firmly in the US orbit, Rome resumed
contacts with China as a subordinate thread of what has been termed its “microGaullist”10 overture to the Soviet bloc in the 1960s. While economic considerations
played a role in this phase, the core value at stake in the transformed international
context ushered in by the Sino-Soviet split and the U.S. détente with the PRC was
essentially symbolic in nature and had to do with recognition. As well as in the social
one, credit is a most potent symbolic good in the international realm: “the power
granted to those who have obtained sufficient recognition to be in a position to impose
recognition”11. The PRC leadership was then – and remains today – highly sensitive
to the international status of their country for two fundamental reasons: geopolitically,
widespread recognition of the PRC as the “only one China” is vital for Beijing’s
irredentist agenda, which aims for the eventual incorporation of the “other” China on
the island Taiwan (to this day, officially the Republic of China); domestically, the
projection of the country’s stature globally is key to the legitimacy of the CCP’s
monopoly of political power12.
The establishment of formal bilateral diplomatic relations between Italy and China on
November 6, 1970 – one year ahead of the PRC’s successful bid to take over the
Chinese seat in the United Nations, and eight years before Washington and Beijing
exchanges ambassadors in early 1979 – remains a positive testimony to Italy’s foreign
policy autonomy in Beijing’s eyes.13 In 1970 Italy was pursuing its own share of
symbolic returns: Rome sought to shore up its credentials as a dynamic and
constructive international player within the Atlantic alliance, one that could read the
Zeitgeist and actively facilitate the impending transformation of the international
system through a more complete incorporation of China.
The negotiations leading to the diplomatic success of 1970 were not, however, the
only instance in which Rome chose to deploy remarkable symbolic power in its
approach towards China. The course of action taken in September 1990 by Foreign
Minister Gianni De Michelis – at a time when Italy’s act was magnified by Rome
holding the rotating presidency of the European Community – was just as
consequential, if not more so. Given that the fundamental “core interest” pursued by
the Chinese leadership is that of preserving the political system of the PRC, which is
underpinned by the symbiotic relationship of Party and State (dangguo), 14 De
Michelis’s choice to spearhead the normalization of ties after the violent repression of
the Tian’an men reform movement in 1989 could hardly have been of greater strategic
import. Fissures in the cordon sanitaire imposed on the PRC after June 4th had already
emerged with Japan resuming contacts and the World Bank re-activating credit lines,
but in the context of the sudden, systemic failure of the socialist bloc, high-level
support from a core Western country was eagerly seized upon by Beijing. On this
occasion, however, the renewed recognition of China’s place in the family of nations,
3 sealed by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti’s visit to the Chinese capital in September
1991 and that of his counterpart Li Peng to Rome in January 1992, was premised
upon a political calculus that, on the Italian side too, was somewhat different from
1970. Expectations of oblique reciprocity in the field of trade featured much more
prominently, this time.
Such expectations were indeed quickly met in the rather spurious form of what could
be termed a guanxi éntente, a phase lasting for less than two years that is often
regarded as the historical zenith of Italy’s relations with China in modern times. Two
aspects ought to be recognized of this very favorable, if short-lived, strategic
convergence: the first is the nature of the relation of amity and trust, which had
matured out of an existential crisis for the Chinese leadership, and was thus
considered to be premised upon a perception of compatible horizons for the two
countries. The Italian government was hardly the only one to consider any prolonged
isolation of China untenable, but during his visit to Beijing in May 1991 De Michelis
seemed to capture the essence of the grand bargain that Deng was about to re-launch
through his forthcoming Southern tour: accelerated development and access to
material wealth in exchange for uncontested political primacy for the CCP inside
China.15 The Italian Minister’s decision to commit 600 billion liras (just short of EUR
600 million at today’s prices) through funds of the Italian Development Cooperation
(IDC) attests to Italy’s determination to be part of this development drive.
The second defining feature of this guanxi éntente is the informal and personalized
quality it possessed, whereby the affinity of apical figures in the respective political
milieus would reverberate on an institutional scale while transcending the state
machinery for its reproduction (and control).16 The impulse to build relationships,
which reflects the highly personalized view of the political process in China,17 was
effortlessly compatible with the clientelar practices which have traditionally
characterized Italian socio-political and economic dynamics. 18 As a result,
opportunities arising in China for joint undertakings, especially through IDC funds –
such as the famous case of the development of the Pudong district in Shanghai –, were
socialized through logics and networks of patronage which often surpassed formal
agencies. Such practices could be effective in minimizing transaction costs for
individual Italian actors operating in the complex Chinese environment, but on a more
systemic level they detracted from the strategic import of Italy’s engagement: a
passive tendency to negotiate over the distribution of emerging opportunities often
replaced active efforts to define long-term synergies at the intersection of China’s
development agendas and Italy’s comprehensive industrial capacity.
The limits of this approach became tangible in 1992, as widespread corruption
scandals (several of which did in fact involve the mismanagement of IDC budgets)
generated a profound dislocation in the Italian political system, leading to the sudden
freeze of funds allocated for IDC initiatives abroad, including the Pudong project.
With pivotal “friends of China” in Rome now out of office and often under
investigation, the combination of over-reliance on informal networks and manifest
incapacity to make true of promised investments were lethal to Italy’s repute as a
reliable partner for China. An Italian Parliamentary Commission later established to
investigate the handling of the IDC policies toward developing countries records the
“occasional failures in the adjudication of bids,” admitted to by high-level Chinese
officials with reference to the occasional interference of personal connections19. More
4 tellingly for the future of bilateral relations, however, the same report somewhat
unwittingly bears witness to the demise of the guanxi éntente, repeatedly quoting an
admonition by the Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade
and Economic Cooperation, who warned that Italy stood to “lose face”.
The following two decades witnessed a difficult process of re-institutionalization of
bilateral engagement, and somewhat erratic attempts to repair Italy’s authoritativeness
and rebuild its trustworthiness in the eyes of the Chinese partner. As it is frequently
remarked by both Italian and Chinese officials and businesspeople in China, Italy’s
engagement with China has since remained in catch-up mode20. The following two
sections thus explore the ambitions, structural limits, and perspectives of the current
Italian projection towards the PRC respectively in the economic and political realms.
The political economy of current bilateral relations
Italy-China relations in the economic realm are rendered unique by three fundamental
factors and two specific dynamics21. The former are constituted by the presence –
both in the Chinese and Italian economy – of a strong manufacturing sector, heavy
reliance on exports, and a distinctively low-tech production bias. The two dynamics
that have developed upon these foundations may be characterized as asymmetrical
competition and asynchronous access to trade opportunities.
While China has now long (re-)emerged as a global industrial hub, with
manufacturing accounting for 30 percent of added value on GDP in 201022, there is
far less recognition that manufacturing is equally as significant in Italy. Added value
originating from manufacturing is worth 17 percent of the Italian GDP, the second
highest such percentage among the larger advanced European economies after
Germany at 21 percent. Manufactured goods are crucial for Italy’s exports: while
Chinese exports of manufactured goods have topped the US and Germany to achieve
world primacy (10.4 percent of the world’s total in 2011), Italy ranks eight globally
(2.9 percent), having consolidated in 2010 its position as the third European country
for overall extra-EU exports, at 10.7 percent of the Union’s total23. For the most part,
Italy’s exports are low-tech in content: in 2009 only 8 percent of Italian exports could
be qualified as high-tech, an exceptionally small proportion compared to the OECD
average, and barely half of what was reported for German manufacturing24. Over the
past thirty years, Italy has pursued a peculiar path for an advanced economy: rather
than facilitating a transition towards new types of production at the higher end of the
technological and human capital spectrum through investment in research and
development, national manufacture has mostly continued to specialize in traditional
sectors25.
Given these premises, the PRC’s increasing projection on global markets inevitably
induced an early competitive dynamic, with consequent severe displacement of Italian
companies. The PRC’s vigor in international trade brought radical changes to the
workings of global business, beginning with labor-intensive, low-tech sectors26. The
initial effect was a sharp decline first in the value (in the 1990s) and subsequently in
the volume (in the first half of the 2000s) of Italian manufacturing exports27. Data
published by ISTAT, Italy’s national bureau of statistics, show that the pressure of
Chinese exports was perceived throughout Italy’s traditional production sectors:
5 between 2001 and 2010 Italy’s share of the global textile market fell from 8.70 to 6.62
percent (vis-à-vis China’s growth from 18.62 to 36.74 percent); furniture dropped
from 14.71 to 8.78 percent (against China’s increase from 7.82 to 28.32 percent);
mechanics decreased from 6.97 to 6.33 percent (while Chinese competitors increased
their share from 3.92 to 11.02 percent)28. While a variety of endogenous factors
should also be taken into account in examining Italy’s enfeebled position in the global
trade arena (including a long-running accumulation of structural deficiencies in its
domestic economy and a decline in overall competitiveness), the significant pressure
brought by Chinese goods in all OECD markets, as well as in emerging countries,
constitutes an especially salient variable, considering that such markets taken together
are the destination of about 85 percent of Italian exports29.
Sino-Italian competition in trade is characterized by its remarkable asymmetry. The
underlying elements of such asymmetry mostly derive from the different scope for
monetary flexibility, the diverse structure of the comparative advantages in
production, and distinctive corporate governance practices in the two countries.
While the statute of the European Central Bank explicitly mandates that the ECB
safeguard price stability above all other concerns, the People’s Bank of China has far
wider margins for action, constrained only by the government’s economic policy
choices. Chinese exports have greatly benefitted from a prolonged strategy of
artificial undervaluation of the renminbi, which was finally allowed to gradually
appreciate in the period 2005−2008, and again from June 2010, when the currency
was permitted to fluctuate, although only within narrow pre-determined margins.
Significantly, this appreciation did not occur across the board: while the value of the
renminbi against the dollar grew by approximately 21 percent in the 2005−2008
period, and by a further 6 percent between June 2010 and August 2011, it initially
displayed a more limited appreciation vis-à-vis the euro (approximately 15 percent
between 2005 and 2008) only to later depreciate again between June 2010 and early
November 2011 (-2.7 percent), despite this being the height of the Eurozone crisis30.
As for the asymmetry in the structure of production and in corporate governance, the
most frequently cited data relate to low-skilled labor costs – inevitably much lower in
China than in Italy, though slowly rising in recent years – and to the effectiveness of
the regulatory framework, which in the PRC is not fully effective in preventing
various kinds of dumping practices. The different size of companies in the two
countries is a further significant factor: 94.8 percent of Italian businesses are microenterprises (with an average of 3.9 employees each), a much bigger proportion than
any other advanced economy. Although there is a scarcity of comparable data for the
PRC, Chinese companies – especially those engaging in export – are on average of a
far bigger size.
Adding to the dimensional aspect of Chinese enterprises, many of which have grown
to take advantage of economies of scale to degrees that are unattainable by Italian
competitors, a sizeable number of the larger-size companies display ownership
patterns that effectively qualify them as state-run. Although only few of the 125
groups controlled by the Chinese Party-State appear to directly impact strategic Italian
production sectors, their opaque ownership structure covers a variety of subsidiaries
operating in various fields31. The continuing (and possibly growing) relevance of
State firms in the Chinese economy (whose output is estimated between 30 and 50
6 percent of GDP) constitutes an additional element of disproportion between China
and Italy. The well-established practice of Chinese-style “revolving door politics”,
involving a constant movement of personnel between State-run companies and the
formal Party-State apparatus, together with preferential access to credit and often
privileged government procurement policies, give these companies powerful
competitive edge.
The asymmetrical competition dynamic weighting on Italy-China relations since the
1990s has been complemented by a specific phenomenon of asynchrony of
opportunities in bilateral trade and investment flows. While the global financial crisis
may increase the political momentum for a thorough implementation of the PRC’s
Twelfth five-year program (2011-2015) – which calls for a re-balancing of the
Chinese economy through increased domestic demand, investment on human capital
and outbound foreign investment (OFDI) – China’s economy currently remains
largely structured around export-oriented manufacturing, financed by substantial
international investments and focused on low added-value production and the
assembling of imported semi-finished products. In this context, trade opportunities for
Italy in China remain structurally deferred, while Chinese companies crowd
competitors out of global markets. A clear indicator of this tendency is Italy’s trade
deficit with the PRC, which has significantly increased over the past decade.
In 2010, Italy suffered a deficit in its trade balance with China of over EUR 20 billion
and this trend does not seem to be experiencing any structural correction (the deficit
was EUR 19.3 bn in 2011), even though the two parties have formally committed
themselves to increasing overall bilateral trade to 80 billion in the context of a
progressive rebalancing32. So far Italy has lacked the capacity to fully exploit the
opportunities offered by the Chinese economy. The asynchrony of opportunities for
Italian companies was to an extent inevitable, given that key national manufacturers –
specialized in the production and export of consumer goods generally identified as
“Made in Italy” – were unable to tap into any sizeable demand for their products in a
market that has long been rather modest in size and comparatively underdeveloped
with respect to its consumption patterns. In 2010, the PRC33, besides being the
recipient of an already modest 2.54 percent of total Italian exports, was the final
destination of only 1.63 percent of total “Made in Italy” exports worldwide. While on
average “Made in Italy” products contributed some 40.46 percent to total Italian
exports in 2010, the relevant quota for the PRC was just 26.02 percent 34. It is
therefore unsurprising that Italy should rank tenth among world importers of Chinese
goods, with 2 percent of total Chinese exports flowing into the country, while it is
only the twentieth largest exporter to the PRC, capturing 0.9 percent of the Chinese
market in 201135. For the most part, Italy’s as yet feeble footprint in the Chinese
market is owed to capital goods, especially machinery, which accounted for some
48.84 percent of Italian export to China in 2010, as investigated in greater detail in
Giorgio Prodi’s contribution to this collection.
The asymmetrical competition endured by the Italian manufacturing sector, coupled
with a partly structural asynchrony of opportunities determined by the peculiar
configuration of the Chinese market, resulted in a pervasive wave of restructuring
among Italian companies36. This socially painful process was made inevitable by the
transfer of sovereign prerogatives from Eurozone countries to EU institutions in the
realm of monetary policy, precluding Rome’s traditional policy response to the
declining competitiveness of Italian manufacturers, the devaluation of the lira. The
7 ensuing response by Italian producers has been discussed in literature as a strategy of
arroccamento37, entailing a defensive re-positioning of producers within the same
sectors but at a progressively higher quality – and price – end. An analysis of Trade
Performance Index38 data offers initial statistical evidence of the relative success of
this restructuring process: in 2009 Italy remained leader in terms of global
competitiveness in traditional “Made in Italy” sectors such as textiles, leather, and
clothing, and it ranked second in the fields of electronic components, non-electronic
machinery, and low-tech manufacturing.
Debate in Italy is lively as to the sustainability of these results and, more generally, on
the future of a national economy relying increasingly on leadership positions in niche
markets. On the one hand, there is a diffuse fear that Italy may become marginal in
the face of the shift toward higher-end, value-added production in advanced emerging
economies such as China. On the other, several observers note that Chinese
competition in traditional sectors has not waned, and indeed is bound to become more
acute, given a growing specialization – not differentiation – of China’s exports39.
With the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 Italy-China economic relations
have gained momentum beyond the trade dimension. In Italy, the sudden credit
contraction and subsequent deterioration of public finances led to a liquidity crisis that
came close to endangering the very solvency of the state (and of most banks, heavily
exposed to government treasuries). Contextually, Beijing’s prompt and effective
reaction to the severe deterioration of the world economy projected China to a new
global standing, highlighting a discontinuity vis-à-vis the previous phase that had long
been in the making and could now be fully appreciated. The PRC thus emerged not
only as an increasingly pivotal market, but also, crucially, as a key source of outward
investment in both the public and private sector.
Although the precise contours of Beijing’s exposure to the Italian sovereign debt are
not publicly known – and to a degree may well be utterly impossible to determine40 –,
the indirect influence that China exerts on Italy, and on Europe more broadly, at this
juncture is significant. The clear preference shown by Chinese authorities for
investments in debt securities guaranteed at the European (rather than national) level
impacts on the debate developing within the European Union on the structural reforms
that countries such as Italy are called upon to implement. As the necessity for a more
comprehensive integration of the Eurozone – whose material constitution is already
being remodeled, albeit without a clear outcome in the horizon – is now recognized
by all major European leaders, Beijing’s financial leverage is set to remain a crucial
factor in the complex political−economic equation that will shape the future of the
Union and its member states.
Global and European negotiations tackling the Eurozone crisis reverberate on the
dynamics of Chinese investments in the Italian economy. On the one hand, Chinese
institutional investors have indicated their preference for direct investments channeled
through mechanisms such as the Fondo Strategico Italiano (Italian Strategic Fund),
established in 2011 to promote the development of strategic national enterprises, and
controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, a state-owned entity managing national postal
savings. On the other, by declining to deploy any especially substantial degree of
liquidity in the Italian sovereign debt market in the absence of European guarantees,
Beijing indirectly amplifies European calls for Rome to implement structural reforms
8 that may strengthen the stability of the whole Eurozone and facilitate the next steps in
European integration.
These tensions, coupled with a rather unfavorable business environment 41 , help
explain Italy’s disappointing performance as a destination of Chinese OFDI. The total
stock of PRC investment in the country remains low: USD 223.8 million in 2010, or
1.79 percent of China’s total stock in the EU, which itself accounts for only 3.94
percent of the PRC’s global ODFI stock42. Flows data are also telling: while Chinese
OFDI flows to Italy grew at an annual average of 21 percent between 2008 and 2010,
in line with a general trend that sees China on course to become one of the world’s
top investors43, the average for the whole of the European Union in the same period
was 157 percent 44.
Initial research investigating the volumes and logics of Chinese investments in Italy
allows to switch perspective and grasp one of the transforming influences that Italy
may exercise over China. In line with what is observed at the European level, Chinese
investments in Italy are implemented not only with the aim of penetrating Europe’s
single market, but also to gain access to superior technologies, production processes,
and human capital45. Such “strategic assets” are increasingly targeted through the
acquisition of companies that are highly competitive in their niches, but suffer from
financial weakness or have a long-standing practice of cooperation with the Chinese
investor. The 2011/2012 European Business in China Position Paper published by
the European Union’s Chamber of Commerce in China argues that the learning effects
that may result from an enhanced interaction between Chinese and European
companies can make a crucial contribution to achieving the sustainability goals
mandated by the Twelfth five-year program. In the specific case of Italy, a further
transferable competence entails local governance practices and the development of
industrial districts and rural productive clusters, which are of prime importance for
Chinese authorities searching for new tools to manage their micro-enterprises46.
One final tendency which is likely to be strengthened by the combined effect of the
policy recommendations contained in the Twelfth five-year program and the structural
consequences of the global financial crisis regards the rebalancing of China’s
economy through increased domestic consumption. The transformation of
consumption incentives and patterns are expected to open an unprecedented window
of opportunity, mitigating the asynchrony that has so far characterized trade relations
between Italy and the PRC. The research department of Confindustria, Italy’s
business association, estimates that private consumption in the PRC could grow from
36 percent of GDP in 2010 (nominal value) to 45 percent within five years, reaching
50 percent by 2020. In this context, consumption by the more affluent segment of
Chinese society would escalate from USD 981 billion in 2010 (2.6 percent of total
world consumption) to 2,442 bn in 2015 (5.4 percent), and 5,575 bn in 2020 (over 10
percent of the world total)47. This trend, combined with the increasingly central role
played by women in the societies of emerging countries, is particularly promising for
Italian producers of consumer goods falling in the category of “affordable luxury”,
which comprises food, furniture, footwear, apparel and accessories made with quality
materials and design but not conceived only for niche consumption. Sales of such
goods, accounting for 14 percent of Italian exports in 2009, is expected to grow by
approximately 46 percent in constant prices between 2009 and 2015, with some half
of this growth being generated in non-OECD countries, and especially in China.48
9 Revitalizing the bilateral strategic partnership: ambitions and constraints
“Italy has traditionally lacked a comprehensive foreign policy towards China and
attempts at systematically pursuing one remain in their infancy.49” In 2013 this
somber assessment still captures a fundamental quality of the relationship: Italy is
only very slowly adjusting to a reality in which China will no longer lie at the
periphery of its strategic horizon. Tellingly, claims of a deficit in terms of a
“comprehensive approach” to East Asia were featuring prominently as early as in
1899, in parliamentary debates which prompted the resignation of one of the very first
Cabinets of united Italy precisely on the grounds of severe failures in its China
policy.50
To this day, even though the end of the Cold war and the dynamics of globalization
have accelerated an irresistible drift of the epicenter of the international system
towards the Asia-Pacific, this very region remains the least engaged by apical figures
of the Italian state. Though hardly the only measure of a country’s attention and
dedication to its partners, high-level visits are essential to promoting reciprocal trust,
especially in areas of the world where there is little history of bilateral contacts and
relatively scarce population of Italian origin – and where greater self-awareness and
self-confidence are fostered by an increasingly manifest economic potential51. An
examination of the Statistical Yearbook of the Italian Foreign Ministry shows that in
the years 1999-2011 official visits from the Asia-Pacific region to Italy at the level of
Heads of State, Heads of Government or Foreign Ministers have consistently been the
least numerous of all, hardly reaching 10 percent of the total.
Figure 1. Visits at Head of State, Head of Government or Foreign Minister level from
and to countries in the Asia-Pacific region (percentage over total number of visits in the
year).
Source: author’s calculations based on Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Annuario Statistico
(Statistical Yearbook) (Rome: various years).
10 Figures concerning high-level visits from China, however, need to be evaluated with
special care: the State hierarchy is only one component of the Chinese leadership; in
fact, between 2010 and 2012 six of the nine members of the Standing Committee of
the XVII CCP Central Committee – the supreme political body in the Chinese PartyState – stopped in Rome, including the would-be Secretary General of the CCP and
President of the PRC Xi Jinping in 2011. Such unusually intense level of attention on
China’s part is widely understood52 to be a recognition of Rome’s consistency with
respect to several contentious dossiers, on which Italy has demonstrated willingness
and capacity to maintain a predictable and favorable attitude. While the critical views
aired by some prominent public figures – including former Treasury supremo Giulio
Tremonti’s characterisation of the PRC as pursuing imperialistic strategies to
Europe’s detriment53 – had raised concerns among Chinese officials54, the narrative
of the political boom-and-bust cycles that would have affected Italy’s relations with
China in the 2000s was finally shelved by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as he
expressed his determination to “keep enhancing the bilateral dialogue”55 during the
2010 celebration for the 40th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral ties.
In fact, while Italy’s engagement with China has been described as suffering from a
“pendulum syndrome” in recent years – with Romano Prodi’s center-left
administrations (1996-1998 and 2006-2008) much more sensitive to Italy's projection
towards China compared with Silvio Berlusconi’s governments (1994-1996, 20012006, and 2008-2011) – the actual record is more nuanced56. Prodi's commitment to
improving relations with China – an orientation he would keep during his term as
President of the European Commission (1999-2004) – was underlined by his highprofile visits to the country, where he remains a cherished interlocutor on global
issues at the highest levels. His second government is especially credited with
increasing the funding provided for Italy's participation to the 2010 Shanghai World
Expo – where the prominence of the Italian pavilion was such that local authorities
eventually chose to preserve it as a permanent window on the Italian lifestyle –, but
also with a decisive action to stimulate Beijing to raise China’s profile in the Middle
East by committing to an increase of its peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
Berlusconi's record is more mixed: in November 2003, during a trip to Beijing in his
capacity as President of the Council of the European Union, he devoted a mere 12
hours to discussing bilateral relations with his counterparts, the shortest ever time
afforded to China by a foreign leader57. The official launch of the strategic partnership
between Italy and China, however, took place in 2004 under his administration and he
was personally responsible for accelerating the transformation of the mindset which
had until then prevailed in Italy’s foreign policy establishment. During his tenure as
interim Foreign Minister from January to November 2002, he advocated a servicesand promotion-oriented diplomacy,58 a cultural but also operational shift from which
the Italian embassy and consulates in China benefited significantly in terms of human
and financial resources. With a total staff of 73, in 2011 the Italian embassy in Beijing
had almost doubled its size compared to a decade earlier to become technically the
largest in the Italian network, though ranking fourth in terms of resident diplomats (8,
vis-à-vis 16 in Washington, 12 in Berlin and 9 in Moscow). Similarly, personnel in
Italian consulates in China (Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong) increased from 38
units in 1999 to 84 in 2011, the largest concentration in the world but for the United
States. The outcome of this build-up in terms of increased dynamism in bilateral
11 exchanges is captured by the statistics regarding visas, which have increased tenfold
in the space of twelve years, from 24,787 in 1999 to 253,306 in 201159.
At the political level, from Beijing’s perspective, the strategic partnership signed by
the two countries is especially valuable in light of Italy’s position on key dossiers
such as the “One China policy,” the situation in Xinjiang and Tibet, and the issue of
human rights. On the first ground, despite the presence of a sizeable – if not
particularly vociferous – parliamentary group of “friends of Taiwan” since 1994, the
Italian Government has essentially maintained a favorable view of China’s positions,
except for the disputes in the South and East China seas, where Rome recommends
negotiated solutions. As to the internal dynamics in the restless provinces of Tibet and
Xinjiang, Italian pronouncements have recurrently emphasized the protection of
cultural and religious rights – in line with the sensitivities expressed by Parliament
(Figure 2) – while avoiding references to possible institutional arrangements based on
local autonomy. This attitude, synthesized in the formula “understanding before
passing judgment,”60 and appreciated in Beijing as a measure of respect for the
internal affairs of the country, is manifest in the field of human rights too. While
Italy’s behavior in this realm has been criticized in some quarters61, its approach is
regarded with interest in China, and attempts are under way to pursue future bilateral
Italo-Chinese dialogues on human rights within the context of regular political
consultations between top-level diplomatic officials – itself a new format that is
currently being negotiated by the two sides.
This attempted upgrade of the bilateral political dialogue, premised on a sustained revitalization of the Italy-China Governmental Committee as the pivotal mechanism
energizing the strategic partnership, is at the heart of the current Italian agenda for the
development of bilateral ties. In the absence of political impulse and support from
Parliament – including the more relevant Commissions62 –, and given the relatively
broad guidelines offered by subsequent governments in terms of the core interests to
be pursued in Italy’s China policy, it is hardly surprising that the potential of the
strategic partnership has only partially been tapped. The Italian side has mostly
leveraged it to engage Beijing on two sets of priorities: the state of bilateral economic
relations, and the reform of the United Nations Security Council. On the first ground,
a Triennial Action Plan was signed in 2010 with the objective to bring trade levels to
EUR 80 billion by 2015 in the context of a progressively more equitable balancesheet, given the worrisome deficit suffered by Italy, as analyzed in greater detail in the
previous section. A substantial increase in investments is also pursued, both through
the promotion of improved conditions for Chinese private investors in Italy, and by
means of a consistent engagement with the Chinese sovereign wealth funds. With
regards to the UN, China’s convergence with Italy’s position is a strategic asset: based
on the country’s standing as the sixth-largest contributor to the UN regular budget and
its intense commitment to UN peace-keeping operations (1,121 personnel on the
ground, the largest number from any Western nation),63 Italian diplomats play a
central role in the United for Consensus group, which opposes a “quick-fix”
enlargement of the number of permanent seats in the Council.
In Rome’s view, the value of the bilateral strategic partnership should be enhanced
precisely by broadening the scope of the agenda treated in the framework of the ItalyChina Governmental Committee, which should grow to cover themes related to global
governance and regional crises. The aim is for a regular convening of the Committee
12 at the presence of the two Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Whether the new head of the
PRC’s diplomacy, Wang Yi, will in 2013 reciprocate the visit paid to Beijing by
Minister Franco Frattini in 2011, and thus underwrite the ostensibly shared ambition
to maintain a good regularity in the work of the Italy-China Governmental
Committee, will be an important indicator of the attitude of the new Chinese
government towards Italy and, to an extent, the whole European Union.
In China’s view, in fact, a key underlying value in the strategic partnership with Italy
is linked to Rome’s influence as a founding and committed member of the European
Union, and the direction for further development of the bilateral ties entails a
positioning of the Sino-Italian partnership as an increasingly proactive force in the
broader context of EU-China relations. Here, Italy has tended to play a mitigating role
with respect to the more rigid European positions on two focal dossiers: the
attribution of the Market Economy Status to China and the lifting of the decades-old
arms embargo. The first issue is increasingly reputational in nature and is steadily
losing salience, as China’s WTO accession protocol allows WTO members to treat
China as a “nonmarket economy” only until 2016. In the second case, Italy was
among the more committed advocates of a discontinuation of the embargo in the mid2000s, although unanimity among EU member states failed to materialize, partially
owing to Washington’s forceful objections.
Looking ahead, in the short term, Beijing’s commitment to pursuing an enhancement
of its partnership with Rome is likely to be a function of Italy’s capacity to steer itself
to the virtuous end of the asset/liability spectrum against which the country has been
assessed since the beginning of Eurozone crisis in 2009. Failure to design a
sustainable path for the state finances – and, indeed, for society at large, at a time of
severe fragmentation in the domestic economic and socio-political fabric – would
cripple Rome’s already enfeebled international standing, and once again cast Italy as
the potential detonator of a systemic upheaval in Europe. In this context, two
influential intervening variables with regards to Sino-Italian relations will be
constituted by the attitudes towards China held by the general public and Parliament.
Although its influence on the country’s foreign policy is generally limited (except for
sporadic episodes of mobilization)64, Italian public opinion tends not to be particularly
warm towards China: statistical surveys conducted in recent years consistently show
that Italians largely share a negative view of China and its economic relationship with
Italy, nor do they seem to perceive a commonality of values with Chinese society at
large65. This tendency is reflected – indeed magnified – in Parliamentary proceedings:
during the course of the XVI Legislature (2008-2012), the vast majority of the 128
interrogations, motions, and orders of the day which were tabled before the full
Chambers and relevant commissions having China as their subject focused on
eminently negative aspects. In wholly bipartisan fashion, Deputies and Senators from
different political groupings focused on unfair competition and scarce protection of
property rights, threats to the safety of the public, and illicit activities conducted by
Chinese citizens on the Italian soil in 39 percent of cases, with a further 41 percent of
their time devoted to freedom of religion in China, to the handling of local dissidents
and censorship, and to the specific situations concerning Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan.
13 Figure 2. China-related resolutions, orders of the day, and written and oral questions
(Interrogazioni) raised before relevant commissions and the full Chambers of the Italian
Parliament, XVI Legislature (April 29, 2008 – December 22, 2012).
Source: author’s calculations based on the online archives of the proceedings of the Chamber
of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) and the Senate of the Republic (Senato della Repubblica).
Figure 3. Severe (YES vs. NO) + mild (YES or NO vs. ABSTAINED) divergence in
Italy's voting behaviour vis-à-vis P5 countries in percentage over total number of votes
at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Source: author’s calculations based on the online archives of the United Nations Human
Rights Council.
14 In the longer term, the distance perceived by the Italian public vis-à-vis China’s
projected value-system – a sentiment which turns out to have a substantive political
echo in Italy’s voting behavior at the UN Human Rights Council (Figure 3) – may
resonate at a strategic level too, in keeping with the very ontology of the European
project. The EU is cast as a “civilian power” not for any abstract repudiation of
military force as a tool in international relations, but rather for its aim to “civilize”
international anarchy through the transposition on an international scale of the
principles, processes, and codes of conduct inherent to domestic democratic politics66.
In this sense the EU’s most accomplished expression, as emphasized by President
Napolitano during his 2010 speech at the CCP Central Party School, is the
legalization of supranational governance practices. Whether and how this approach –
historically favored by Italy 67 – can be fruitfully reconciled with the realpolitik
strategic culture that remains entrenched in Beijing are likely to be defining questions
for both the freshly-installed Chinese leadership and the new officials who will be
called at the helm of the fast-changing European institutions as from 2014.
1
Research for this paper was conducted during the period September 15, 2010 December 20, 2012 and benefited from grants by the Department of Political Studies of the
University of Torino, the Torino World Affairs Institute (T.wai), and the Australian Centre
for China in the World (CIW) of the Australian National University, in conjunction with the
China Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney. I am grateful to Maurizio
Marinelli for his hospitality at the CRC. All 39 1.5 hour face-to-face research interviews with
relevant officials and academics in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Brussels, Washington DC
and Rome were conducted by the author.
2
One of the very first public engagements of the newly-installed seven members of the
Standing Committee of the XVIII CCP Central Committee on November 29, 2012 was a joint
visit of the “Road Toward Renewal” exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
On the relevance of the theme of “Rejuvenation” see Research Center for the Theoretical
System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics of the Party School of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China, “Socialism and National Rejuvenation,” Qiushi
Journal
(English
edition),
2,
no.
2
(2010),
http://english.qstheory.cn/politics/201109/t20110924_112495.htm, accessed November 10,
2012.
3
See Janet Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System AD
1250−1350 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
4
André Gunder Frank, ReOrient (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
5
Sergio Zoli, La Cina e l’età dell’illuminismo in Italia (China and the age of
Enlightenment in Italy) (Bologna: Pàtron, 1974), 236.
6
Chen Xiaomei, Acting the Right Part. Political Theater and Popular Drama in
Contemporary China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), p. 93; Giuliano
Bertuccioli, “Echi del Risorgimento in Cina,” Il Veltro, 5-6 (1961): 155-170.
15 7
Liang Qichao, Yidali jianguo sanjie zhuan (Biographies of the three heroes who made
Italy), in Liang Qichao quanji, ed. Yang Gang and Wang Xiangyi (Beijing: Beijing
chubanshe, 1999), vol. XI, 1-2.
8
Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 19271937 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 39-40.
9
Maria Hsia Chang, “Fascism and Modern China,” The China Quarterly, 79 (1979):
565.
10
Sergio Romano, “Italian Foreign Policy After the End of the Cold War,” Journal of
Modern Italian Studies 14, no. 1 (2009): 8.
11
Pierre Bourdieu, “Social Space and Symbolic Power,” Sociological Theory 7, no. 1
(1989): 23.
12
See on this Shi Zhiyu and Shih Chih-Yu, China’s Just World: The Morality of
Chinese Foreign Policy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993); Allen Carlson and Ren
Xiao, New Frontiers in China’s Foreign Relations (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011),
chapter 1.
13
Interview with Chinese officials in Rome and scholars in Beijing, July 14, 2011 and
November 26, 2012.
14
Information Office of the PRC State Council, “China’s Peaceful Development,”
(Beijing: 2011), http://english.gov.cn/official/2011-03/31/content_1835499.htm, accessed
December 3, 2012.
15
Tanina Zappone, “Attività diplomatiche nei decenni,” Sulla Via del Catai, 5, 2011:
107. On Deng Xiaoping’s “Southern tour talks” (nanxun tanhua) and their relevance in relaunching the policies of economic reform and opening up in post-Tian’an men China, see
Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 341 and following.
16
A testimony to the resilience of such personal relationships in the Chinese context is
contained in the Report by the Parliamentary Commission on the Investigation of the
Cooperation and Development Policies with Developing Countries (Commissione
Parlamentare d’inchiesta sull’attuazione della politica di cooperazione con i Paesi in via di
sviluppo), session held on October 25, 1995, discussing a mission to China and Vietnam
pursued in July 1995: the Honorable Deputy Bergamo expresses his surprise in having come
across pictures of former Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis during his meetings at the
Embassies of China and Vietnam in Rome; the pictures were exposed prominently, although
De Michelis had by then been out of office for three years, and was fighting several
corruption charges in the courts; http://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/DF/57941.pdf,
accessed October 24, 2012.
17
Richard H. Solomon, Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests Through
‘Old Friends’ (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1999), 32; Lucian W. Pye, The
Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 212 and following.
18
Simona Piattoni, Le virtù del clientelismo: una critica non convenzionale (Rome-Bari:
Laterza, 2007).
19
Commissione Parlamentare d’inchiesta, 5.
20
Interviews conducted in Beijing and Shanghai, various dates, February and November
2012.
21
This section is drawn from Giovanni Andornino, “The Political Economy of Italy's
Relations with China,” The International Spectator 47, no. 2, 87-101.
22
World Bank statistics: http://data.worldbank.org, last accessed February 10, 2013.
23
Eurostat and WTO trade data (see Press Release 598, 26 March 2010). ISTAT data
for 2009 show that 77 percent of total added value for the manufacturing sector is
concentrated in the export sector.
24
World Bank data. High-end manufacture includes R&D-intensive goods, generated in
sectors such as aerospace, information technology, pharmaceuticals and electronics.
25
In terms of overall national expenditure for research and development (GERD), the
research inventory promoted by ERAWATCH for the EU’s Directorate General for Research
16 estimates that Italy invested 1.27 percent of GDP in 2009, with an annual average growth of 1
percent in the period 1995−2007. Germany, while reporting similar growth, now stands at
2.82 percent, while the European Union average for the 27 states is 2.01 percent.
26
Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transition and Growth (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2007).
27
Beniamino Quintieri, La sfida della qualità. Il futuro delle aziende italiane sui
mercati internazionali (The challenge of quality. The future of Italian companies in
international markets) (Rome: Fondazione Manlio Masi per il Comitato Leonardo, 2007), 910.
28
ISTAT, “Commercio estero e attività internazionali delle imprese. Annuario 2010
(Foreign trade and international activities of Italian companies. 2010 Yearbook),” Rome:
2011.
29
Giorgia Giovannetti, Marco Sanfilippo and Margherita Velucchi, “The ‘China effect’
on Italian exports,” working paper 8 (Rome: Fondazione Manlio Masi, 2011), 16.
30
Data from the statistics section of the European Central Bank website,
http://www.ecb.int/stats/html/index.en.html, accessed October 10, 2012; Marc Labonte and
Wayne Morrison, “China’s currency: an analysis of the economic issues” (Washington DC:
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, August 2011).
31
OCSE, “China’s emergence as a market economy: achievements and challenges”,
working paper for the China Development Forum, Beijing: 20−21 March 2011.
32
Data from the 2011-2012 Report on Italy in the international economy (“L’Italia
nell’economia internazionale. Rapporto 2011-2012”) by the Italian Trade Commission;
http://www.ice.gov.it/statistiche/pdf/Rapporto_ICE_2011-2012.pdf, accessed January 26,
2013. On the Three-year Action Plan (2010−2013), see Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
press release archives, “Piano d’azione triennale 2010-2013 sul rafforzamento della
cooperazione
economica
tra
l’Italia
e
la
China”,
Rome:
2010,
http://www.esteri.it/MAE/IT/Sala_Stampa/ArchivioNotizie/Approf_PostingDettaglio/2010/10
/20101007_Piano_azione_triennale.htm, accessed January 20, 2013.
33
All data on bilateral trade in this paper do not include the special administrative
regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
34
Statistics compiled by the author using UN Comtrade data (online database).
35
2011-2012 Report on Italy in the international economy, 182.
36
On this topic see also Alessia Amighini and Stefano Chiarlone, “Rischi
dell’integrazione commerciale cinese per il modello di specializzazione internazionale
dell’Italia, (Risks from China’s integration in international trade for Italy’s model of
specialization),” LIUC Paper no. 150, “Economia e Impresa (Economy and Enterprise)”
series, no. 37, June 2004 supplement.
37
Beniamino Quintieri, “Declino o cambiamento? Il (ri)posizionamento dell’industria
italiana sui mercati internazionali (Decline or change? The re-positioning of Italian industry
in international markets)”, in “Trasformazioni dell’industria italiana, quaderni di discussione
dell’Istituto di Studi e Analisi Economica, (Transformations of the Italian industry, discussion
papers of the Instute for Economic Studies and Analysis)” December 2007, 75.
38
The Trade Performance Index is jointly developed by the World Trade Organization
and the United Nations.
39
See Mary Amiti and Caroline Freund, “An Anatomy of China’s Export Growth,” in
China’s Growing Role in World Trade, ed. Robert Feenstra and Shang Jin Wei (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010).
40
Figures ranging between 4 percent and 13 percent of overall Italian treasuries have
been quoted in the press and by officials interviewed by the author in Rome. While the lower
estimate is considered plausible, a specific request for information made in Parliament during
question time in May 2011 (ref: 4/05269) has yet to receive formal answer by the Ministry of
Economy and Finance.
17 41
The 2011 World Bank Doing Business report ranks Italy 80th in terms of ease of doing
business out of the 183 surveyed economies.
42
These data are contained in the 2010 statistical bulletin of China’s Outward Foreign
Direct
Investment,
by
the
PRC
Ministry
of
Commerce,
http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/hzs/accessory/201109/1316069658609.pdf, accessed July 10,
2012.
43
In 2010, with OFDI flows worth over USD 68 billion (the amount was 2.7 bn in
2002), Beijing was responsible for 5.2 percent of global flows, the fifth-largest investor
worldwide. Data from the PRC Ministry of Commerce and UNCTAD, World Investment
Report (Geneva: 2011).
44
Embryonic studies on the subject show that only a small minority of Chinese
multinationals operating in Italy does not encounter significant difficulties. See Valeria Gattai,
“Dissecting Chinese ODI: Dragon Multinationals in Italy,” working paper by Milan Bicocca
University’s Department of Political Economics, 20.
45
Carlo Pietrobelli, Roberta Rabellotti and Marco Sanfilippo, “Emerging economic
regional powers and local systems of production: new threats or new opportunities?,” PRIN
2007 working paper 10 (2010), 13-14.
46
This intent, expressed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during his 2011 Report on the
Work of Government (zhengfu gongzuo baogao) with reference to the need to strengthen
social development and improve the well-being of the people, was recently adopted by
various ministries in the PRC, with the express goal of “studying foreign best practices”;
http://www.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/zhengcejiedu/2011zhengcejiedu/201107/t20110704_57
0697.html, accesses November 1, 2011.
47
Manuela Marianera, “Trends in Private Consumption in China: The Development of
Chinese High Income Class and Its Global Relevance,” Confindustria Centro Studi working
paper (2010). This study identifies wealthy Chinese as those with an average yearly income of
at least USD 30,000 (PPA 2005 estimates).
48
Confindustria, Prometeia and SACE, Esportare la dolce vita (Exporting ‘dolce vita’)
(Ariccia: 2010).
49
Interviews with Italian officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
Presidency of the Italian Republic, Rome, December 14, 2011.
50
The first Pelloux Cabinet (June 29, 1898 – May 14, 1899) resigned in the face of
fierce parliamentary criticism of Foreign Minister Felice Canevaro’s handling of the Sanmen
Bay dispute with China. For a comprehensive account of the Sanmen imbroglio see Giorgio
Borsa, Italia e Cina nel secolo XIX (Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1961), 151 and following.
51
The weak track-record of official visits by Italian Prime Ministers to China has been
quoted by the totality of Chinese scholars and officials interviewed in China and Rome as the
single most important factor holding back further development in bilateral ties.
52
Interview with Italian officials in Washington and Rome, various dates, NovemberDecember 2010.
53
Giulio Tremonti, La paura e la speranza (Fear and hope) (Milan: Mondadori, 2010),
33.
54
Interview with Chinese official in Rome, July 14, 2011.
55
See the online archive of the PRC Embassy in Rome, http://it.chinaembassy.org/ita/zygx/t760303.htm, accessed October 27, 2012.
56
Valter Coralluzzo, “Italy’s Foreign Policy Toward China: Missed Opportunities and
New Chances,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 13, no. 1 (2008): 6-24.
57
While this information cannot be verified, this fact is widely remarked upon by
Chinese officials; interviews with Chinese officials in Beijing, November 26-28, 2012.
58
Giampiero Massolo, “Il diplomatico nell’era della globalizzazione e
dell’informatizzazione: ruolo, competenze e preparazione (The diplomat in the era of
globalization and informatization: role, competences and preparation),” La comunità
internazionale, 2 (2007): 237-247.
18 59
Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Annuario Statistico (Statistical Yearbook) (Rome:
various years).
60
This well-established approach was confirmed on the occasion of the speech given by
President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano before the CCP Central Party School during his
State
visit
to
China
on
October
26,
2010;
http://www.quirinale.it/elementi/Continua.aspx?tipo=3&key=1988, accessed March 2, 2013.
61
One instance of such criticisim is contained in the latest “European Foreign Policy
scorecard
2013”
by
the
European
Council
of
Foreign
Relations,
http://www.ecfr.eu/scorecard/2013/china/6, accessed March 4, 2013.
62
Interview with ranking members of the Foreign Relations Commission of the Senate
of the Republic, May 15, 2012.
63
See UN Resolution 67/238 on the Scale of assessments for the apportionment of the
expenses of the United Nations and the UN Peacekeeping Fact Sheet, respectively at
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/res/67/238
and
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2013/jan13_1.pdf, accessed March 4, 2013.
64
Filippo Andreatta and Christopher Hill, “Italy,” in The European Union and National
Defence Policy, ed. Jolyon Howorth and Anand Menon, (London: Routledge, 1997), 81.
65
See the Transatlantic Trends report by the German Marshall Fund of the United
States, 2010 to 2012 (http://trends.gmfus.org, accessed January 4, 2013), but also Pew Global
Attitudes
Project,
Key
Indicators
Database,
2007
and
2012
data
(http://www.pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=24&country=107&response=Favorable,
accessed March 5, 2013).
66
Henning Tewes, “How civilian? How much power? Germany and the Eastern
enlargement of NATO,” in Germany as a civilian power? The foreign policy of the Berlin
Republic, ed. Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns Maull (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2001), 10.
67
Antonio Missiroli, “Italy”, in The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States,
ed. Ian Manners and Richard Whitman (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 87104.
19