Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni has said Rome wants to forge stronger ties with China, even as it considers pulling out of Beijing’s controversial Belt & Road Initiative in the coming months.“The issue is how to ensure a partnership that can be mutually beneficial, regardless of the choices we make on the BRI,” Meloni said in a press conference on Sunday in New Delhi, at the end of the G20 summit.
Meloni met Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the margins of the summit to discuss the future of Italian-Chinese relations, as her government reconsiders Italy’s participation in President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy initiative.
Italy’s 2019 decision to sign-up to the BRI — the only G7 nation to have joined the Chinese trade and infrastructure scheme — dismayed Rome’s western allies, especially Washington, and Meloni has in the past called the move, which was made by a previous government, “a mistake”.