Italy and China: Much Ado about an MoU

Italy’s engagement with China, aptly represented by the Belt and Road Initiative Memorandum of Understanding signed in March 2019, is premised on continuity and on Rome’s economic calculations in the trade and investment agendas. Scraping the surface of populist Eurosceptic posturing, the engagement has hardly been at the detriment of the European Union’s China agenda. Yet, in light of the United States’ pushback against China and the growing fatigue following the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, Italy–China relations have quietly, but steadily, cooled.