Italy plans to join 'China's Belt and Road Initiative: Financial Times...

straitstimes ^ | 3/5/2020 | straitstimes

[Cronos]

That's what I suspected -- please do research on topics related to Europe and to the China-Vatican deal. Your post was filled with errors

1. "Europe will sign on" -- Poland and others are balking at letting Huawei or others in, and others are not interested in slaving to China. So "Europe" won't sign on, neither will the EU as deals have to be approved unanimously by 27 nations and that's not going to happen

2. "Italy's vatican leadership" - the leadership in the Vatican hasn't been Italian for decades. And Italy's ministers from M5S are pretty anti-clerical, so no, there isn't a huge role in trade issues. In social issues there is pressure, but that's also limited as apparent by the fact that Italy does not have an official religion

3. kissing China's feet - so a pastoral (not political) agreement that "he agreement states that China will recommend the Bishops before they are appointed by the Pope, it also stipulates that the Pope has authority to veto any Bishop which China recommends." is kissing the feet in your opinion? Really?

[caww]

Obviously the current geo political environment needs to be fully taken into account when working with the Chinese, and certainly this applies to their ambition to modernize the trading infrastructure between themselves and Europe..... But it might as well be regarded as an opportunity as ‘history’ does indeed bode well for it being a success.

[Cronos]

The history that bodes it well for being a success is centuries out of date. China was a source of many great things, but now not as much. For Europe in particular, the lure of Chinese "loans" is not so interesting, especially considering the reverse relationship. The trading infrastructure between China and Europe is separated by Russia who are not going to get TOO close to their frenemy, and by the Middle East and South Asia.

China is more interested in its near abroad and in the Central Asia - Middle East span (for energy)

[caww]

For China Italy signing on to the Belt and Road Int. is huge since it's one of the G-7 Nato nations. Further Germany has already hard wired into Belt and Road transhipment hub via Ducenberg...and France will be next, as Macron already said at his 2018 China visit that it would be joining China in developing Africa.