Action plan shows China-Italy eyeing brighter prospects

The action plan on strengthening the China-Italy comprehensive strategic partnership for 2024-27 was issued on Monday during Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's five-day visit to China that concluded on Tuesday.

Featuring the great width and depth of bilateral cooperation, which ranges from green economy and innovation to high technology, industry and polar and space exploration, the plan is a de facto to-do list that conveys the strong consensus of Beijing and Rome that the two countries have no reason not to focus on substantially strengthening their across-the-board collaboration. It indicates that they intend to take advantage of their structural complementarity to boost common development and enlarge common interests for the common good of the two peoples, and raise relations to a new level.

That the cooperation projects cover many sectors including electric vehicles and high-tech research, areas in which both the European Union and the United States are trying to "de-risk" from China, citing security concerns, highlights the strategic autonomy the Meloni government upholds in handling relations with China, judging for itself how Italy's national interests can best be served.

The rich fruits the Italian prime minister has reaped from her first China trip after taking office nearly two years ago, and the bright prospects the implementation of these projects will create for both sides, serve to demonstrate to Brussels, and those developed economies under the sway of Washington's "China threat" narrative, the advantageous possibilities that are presented when the US-made tinted spectacles are discarded when viewing ties with China.

It is hoped that Meloni's visit can help Italy and other countries better understand China's development concept so as to play a constructive role in promoting dialogue and cooperation between China and the EU, and in actively promoting the positive and stable development of China-EU relations.

A healthy and stable development of relations with the world's second-largest economy is in line with the common interests of all countries and their peoples. Despite Washington's divisive attempts, Beijing's commitment to valuing and developing relations with all developed countries, including the US, has not changed, the win-win nature of the cooperation China seeks with them has not changed, and the friendship between the peoples has not changed.

The Chinese market, industries and talents all represent opportunities for the developed economies. China is willing to share development opportunities with other countries, and welcomes foreign companies to invest in China and is willing to import more quality products from developed economies.

With almost all EU leaders keeping an eye on the US presidential election and looking to hedge against a return to the in-your-face "America-first" policy of the previous US administration, the interest cracks between the US and its EU allies that the current US administration has painstakingly managed to fill with its "value" cement are now bursting open again one after another.