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London’s FT Promotes Mario Draghi as EU’s Champion against China

The Financial Times promoted Mario Draghi as the champion of a new, colder European attitude towards China, based on a decision to block a Chinese takeover of a small Italian semiconductor company, LTE. The FT claims that Draghi is correcting Italy’s supposed pro-China geopolitical shift under the Conte1 government, when Italy signed on to the Belt and Road, but is back in the pro-Western camp now. It quotes Michele Geraci, the architect of the BRI MOU, in comments about the LTE case.

Geraci published a long correction to the article in which he says there has been no geopolitical shift, because Italy did not change its position as a member of the Western alliance, neither before when it signed the MOU, nor now. “There was no intention of a change in the geopolitical position of our country. It was a story built by some media, sometimes instrumentally. If I tell you, you have to believe this is the end of the line, here!” Geraci wrote. “It is precisely because of this distorted narrative which Draghi inherited” that “it is necessary to make a further media effort to clarify and emphasize once again, as we did, our geopolitical position.”

In other words, Geraci implies that his government action in Italy’s joining the Belt and Road was a “coincidence of opposites” kind of action, a solution found at a higher level than the level where East-West problems are created. The City of London’s FT instead tries to frame that action at the geopolitical level.

The LTE case is a signal, but its importance should not be overstated. Protecting strategic sectors is a right of sovereign governments, and Italy can use the “golden power” mechanism if it deems necessary. But “the battle for the supremacy of semiconductors, a highly strategic sector, is played on 7, 5 and 3 nanometers, not on LTE products. So there is a great media fanfare, ‘Italy is with the U.S.A., not with China’ — but the substance is quite different. Indeed, be careful not to fall into the trap of deluding ourselves with this type of action, that we are really protecting what must be protected.”

It is true, however, that both the Conte2 and the Draghi governments have failed in taking advantage of the MOU to promote economic relations with China, which would benefit both countries. “Unfortunately, for two years, everything has stood still, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of the lack of interest or, perhaps, courage on the part of those who should, on the contrary, be doing the interests of our companies, and not of companies from other countries — just like our friends, the Germans, French and Americans, who, in addition to doing business with billions, also make agreements with China. We, instead, are motionless, frozen by fear. And those who will pay for this immobility, indecision and lack of vision and courage, will be our young people, our workers and our companies.”