The China-Italy Comprehensive Strategic Partnership: Overview and Pathways to Progress

2020, the year that the world was engulfed by the Covid-19 pandemic, was also the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Italy. The China-Italy comprehensive strategic partnership plays an important role in deepening China-EU cooperation, advancing the Belt and Road Initiative, and building a community with a shared future for humanity. China-Italy relations should be studied within the analytical framework of strategic partnership which has gained traction in China’s foreign policy narrative. Beijing’s pursuit of strategic partnerships aims at forging stable and enduring relations that are driven by common interests in a world of proliferating challenges and geopolitical uncertainties. While making steady progress, the partnership is also facing multi-dimensional challenges. China and Italy should strengthen strategic dialogue to build mutual trust and constantly improve their institutionalized cooperation. Economically, they should work out broader areas for collaboration and better manage their competition to achieve win-win results. At the level of people-to-people exchange, mutual understanding and trust should be enhanced to eliminate misconception and prejudice. At the regional level, the China-EU-Italy trilateral relationship should be consolidated to shield bilateral cooperation from the volatility of China-EU relations. In the global arena, China and Italy should also step up efforts to catalyze international financial reforms and address global challenges such as climate change, economic governance, and global public health emergencies by improving policy coordination and aligning global strategies.