When then-Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte signed up for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2019, Italy became the only G7 country to become a BRI member. Then-White House National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis responded to the news by saying that Italy should not be legitimizing “China’s infrastructure vanity project.”
The BRI is no vanity project, and it is a dangerous mistake to underestimate it. While flawed, it is an audacious, innovative and effective mechanism for promoting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) attempt to subvert the established international world order.
The BRI has been called the New Silk Road. It has also been dubbed “globalization with Chinese characteristics.” It consists of two railroad routes extending from China through Asia into Europe, one via Russia, Belarus and Poland, the other taking in Central Asia, Iran and Turkey. There is also a maritime route between China and the Mediterranean via the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal, as well as air freight routes between China and Europe. The BRI brings together 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 35 in Europe and Central Asia, and 25 in East Asia and the Pacific region.
Essentially, the core concept of the BRI is to provide investment in infrastructure projects in participating countries to fabricate a sprawling trade and supply chain network that ostensibly benefits those countries, but ultimately consolidates centralized control of the entire network in Beijing.
Just as it is a mistake to disregard the scale and audacity of the BRI, it is a mistake to regard it as simply being about trade. More importantly, it is about enhancing China’s power and influence throughout the globe, not only by controlling the supply chains, and conjuring up trade and an export destination for China’s construction sector surplus capacity, but also by promoting loyalties among member countries and thereby providing an alternative to the US’ global influence and the narrative of how the world can most effectively be ordered.
Beijing recognizes that the US’ strength derives from its network of alliances. It wants to play the US at its own game, and must have been delighted at getting a G7 member EU country on board, because of the opportunity it presented to drive a wedge between Washington and the EU. Italy’s decision to join in 2019 was significant enough for Xi to make the trip to Rome and deliver a speech to mark the event.
However, Italy’s experience with the BRI has not been entirely positive. Chinese exports to Italy have soared, but there has only been a very modest increase in Italian exports to China since 2019.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said that her government is considering withdrawing from the BRI, and that she would make a decision by December.
Washington would be happy if she removes the country from the initiative. This would not be because of the trade aspect; it would be because of the geopolitical implications of the withdrawal.
Meloni’s December deadline is part of the original agreement: Italy’s membership is due to automatically renew in March next year, unless Rome officially declares its intention to withdraw, at which time it can renegotiate the terms. Everything she has said before suggests she is serious about leaving.
In an interview published on Sunday in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Italian Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto described Conte’s decision to join the BRI as “improvised and atrocious.” It is telling that it was the country’s defense minister making the comment.
Taipei would also be relieved if Meloni pulls Italy out: With all the progress made recently with internationalizing the Taiwan Strait issue and improving ties with EU countries, having Beijing controlling supply chains into the center of Europe is cause for concern.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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