Will Italy leave China’s ‘atrocious’ Belt and Road Initiative?

For some time now the world has being growing increasingly wary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but rarely has any member of the scheme launched a broadside quite like that of Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, who described his country’s decision to join as ‘improvised and atrocious’. In an interview at the weekend, he said that the BRI had brought little benefit to Italy and one of the most pressing question his government now faced was how best to escape its clutches.

The BRI is often described as an international infrastructure project, through which the world will be blessed with Chinese-built roads, railways, ports and power stations. In reality it lacks any real coherence and is better understood as a multi-billion dollar tool for Beijing’s broader economic and geopolitical goals, an umbrella under which all manner of projects are grouped. Much of the criticism rests on the huge and unpayable debts it is creating, the leverage it gives Beijing, and its lack of transparency.