Meloni says China is ‘fundamental to peace and stability’ during meeting with Xi

Announces three-year action plan to “balance trade relations” with Beijing

Jul 29. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Monday that China is “fundamental for peace and stability” in the world during a meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as part of a five-day visit to the Asian giant.

“The rules-based international system is being questioned,” Meloni warned, adding that “there is growing insecurity at the international level and I believe that China is inevitably a very important interlocutor in dealing with all these dynamics, clearly starting from the respective points of view in order to reason together on how to guarantee stability, peace and a trade that remains free,” he said.

“With this trip,” Meloni explained, “we are launching a three-year action plan that we have signed with the Government and that defines the next three years of our bilateral cooperation with the clear objective of strengthening the work that we have already been doing, but also of exploring “new forms of cooperation while working at the same time to balance trade relations.”

In this regard, he said that “from this point of view, Italy can also play an important role in terms of relations with the European Union, also here in an attempt to create trade relations that are as balanced as possible.”

Meloni stressed that China is a “very important economic, commercial and cultural partner” and underlined that “the visit marks a double anniversary” on the occasion of the establishment of the strategic partnership between the parties but also of the death of Marco Polo, which “represents the depth of relations between two civilizations that are heirs to an ancient culture.”

Meloni also addressed the changes brought about by artificial intelligence, noting that the international rules-based system “is being questioned.” “There are new technologies that have an impact and can have incredible results on the future of our societies.”

Xi stressed that the two countries stand at the two ends of the ancient Silk Road, saying that “traditional friendly exchanges between the two countries have made significant contributions to the overall exchanges and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations.”

“The spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit of the Silk Road is a shared treasure of China and Italy,” Xi said, adding that the two countries “will either progress together through connectivity and unity or retreat separately through closure and division,” according to China’s Xinhua news agency.

For this reason, he urged “defending and promoting the spirit of the Silk Road, considering and developing bilateral relations from a historical perspective, a strategic height and a long-term perspective.”