Italy should correct wrong decision on BRI

A China-Europe freight train departs from Xi'an Guojigang Railway Station in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on March 7. In 2004, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement, and in 2019, Italy joined the Belt and Road Initiative, elevating bilateral ties to a new level. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani have managed to only justify their decision with the far-from-reality logic that Italy exited the Belt and Road Initiative because it did not bring any advantages to the country and, instead, the trade deficit increased in favor of China. Anyone who knows a little bit about Chinese culture and the Chinese way of doing business would realize that being the only country in the world to exit the Belt and Road Initiative on the 10th anniversary of the launch of a project dear to China and just days before the 700th death anniversary of Marco Polo, who served in the court of Emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty and helped establish Italy-China relations, is not the best way to keep Sino-Italian ties "solid". With regard to Italy's exports to China, perhaps unknown to Meloni and Tajani, they have actually increased by 33 percent since the country joined the Belt and Road Initiative, much more than our direct competitors, France which witnessed about 10 percent increase and Germany whose exports shrunk during the same period.