The Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS), in partnership with PKU's Center for Mediterranean Area Studies, successfully held an online seminar on January 20 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Italy. At the seminar, experts and scholars from China and Italy jointly discussed the past and future of Sino-Italian relations and Sino-European relations under the changing circumstances.

The seminar was moderated by Enrico Fardella, associate professor of PKU's History Department and director of PKU's Center for Mediterranean Area Studies. Italian ambassador to China Luca Ferrari delivered the opening remarks. He mentioned two major historical events in his remarks. One was in 2004, when the two countries established comprehensive strategic partnership, which boosted the rapid development of Sino-Italian relations and consolidated mutual political trust. The other was in 2019, when Italy joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and cooperation between the two sides entered a new historical phase. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic that raged throughout the world in 2020, the two countries helped each other, enhanced cooperation and fought against the pandemic together, which further promoted a shared sense of humanitarianism. In his opinion, people-to-people exchange would provide broader space for the development of Sino-Italian relations in the post-pandemic era.

A total of seven scholars were invited to the seminar to give presentations: Wang Dong, deputy director of PKU's Office for Humanities and Social Sciences and executive director of PKU's Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding; Li Qiang, professor of PKU's School of Government and director of the Center for European Studies; Sun Yanhong, senior research fellow of the Institute of European Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Duan Demin, tenured associate professor of PKU's School of Government; Zhong Zhun, associate professor of Political Science and International Relations, Chongqing University; and Giovanni B. Andornino and Giuseppe Gabusi, both assistant professors from the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Torino.

Prof. Andornino expressed his view that, after combing through the development of Sino-Italian relations over the five decades, he had come to the conclusion that the two countries have both similarities and differences. Therefore, to further promote the development of the relations between the two countries, Italy needed to foster more young scholars to study China in depth, and China also needed to train more young scholars to study Italy. In addition, the establishment of a comprehensive social science exchange mechanism also played an important role in the development of relations between the two countries.

Based on his research on the evolution of Italian foreign policy, Zhong Zhun expressed his belief that it was only by observing the development of Sino-Italian relations from a Europe-wide or even global perspective that we could provide more valuable suggestions for the future trend of the relations between the two countries. As a European country, Italy has its uniqueness, which helps advance Sino-Italian relations. However, Italy's relations with China are also inseparable from the influence of the EU and NATO frameworks. For China, developing relations with Italy requires understanding the two frameworks. In addition, as the global strategic partnership between the two parties further expands, the significance of the future development of Sino-Italian relations needs to be studied from a global perspective, he said.

Sun Yanhong pointed out in his presentation that, since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Italy had made fruitful achievements in economic and trade cooperation. A series of breakthroughs in bilateral trade and mutual investments were made. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the BRI signed with China in 2019 provided a new platform for the two sides to intensify cooperation, especially trade cooperation. At present, and for a long period of time in the future, China and Italy still have clear economic complementarities, and there would be huge room and potential for cooperation. There were broad prospects for cooperation between the two countries especially in the fields of green economy, China's increasing imports of “Made in Italy” products, and the upgrading of Italy’s domestic infrastructure. In addition, in the field of digital economy, a new cooperation model of “Made in Italy + Digital Technology in China” could be considered. Sun Yanhong also announced news of the compilation and publication of China’s first Blue Book of Italy to the seminar participants.

Prof. Gabusi opined that, in recent years, China's relations with European countries made obvious progress with fruitful achievements. The signing of the EU–China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment at the end of 2020 further advanced Sino-Italian trade cooperation to a new stage. Economic and trade cooperation was the major content of Sino-Italian cooperation and a major driving force to promote the development of Sino-Italy relations. The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment would offer new ideas to the economic and trade cooperation between the two sides.

Li Qiang expressed his view that, before 1970, due to the influence of the international environment, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries was not smooth, but visionary people in China and Italy made great efforts for the two countries to establish diplomatic ties. From the point of view of today, the establishment of diplomatic relations between Italy and China was the right choice, not only in the interests of the two countries, but also in the interests of Europe as a whole.

Looking at Sino-Italian relations within the framework of Sino-European relations, Duan Demin expressed his confidence in a stable future between the two countries, highlighting that although we always have to look at the bigger picture, we should also expect a few complications, such as whether the EU can be an independent actor, and how the EU would resume its cooperation with the US after the Trump administration disrupted good transatlantic relations. “Balance” should be the keyword: Italy will play along with other European member countries in its stance toward China, but will also have to consider its own economic interests, especially in cooperating with China in the Mediterranean region, he said.

Wang Dong delivered the closing remarks. He said that, despite the huge impact of the pandemic on Sino-Italian and Sino-European relations, Sino-Italian and Sino-European cooperation had achieved fruitful results. These achievements proved that multilateralism accorded with mutual common interests and was advantageous for the three parties to make their own contributions to coping with global issues together in the post-pandemic era.

In the aftermath, the participating experts and scholars reported that they believed the seminar had provided a comprehensive review of the development process of Sino-Italian relations and analyzed the problems that existed in the development process of the two sides, which would be conducive to the further advancement of bilateral relations and Sino-European relations.