Two days after the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi met with his Italian colleague Luigi Di Maio in Rome, the founder of the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, weighed in the debate through a blog post.
Mr Di Maio had expressed Italy’s closeness to the EU and the US first and foremost, declaring that the relationship between China and Italy could only exist within the framework of Rome’s alliance and its interests. By contrast, Mr Yi had preached the strengthening of ties between European countries and China to counter the US’ “protectionism” and “unilateralism”.
He had also taken a firm stand on Hong Kong, saying that he believed the city’s high degree of autonomy must be preserved as Beijing cracks down on its democracy – to which Mr Yi reacted coldly, underlining that foreign countries needed not interfere in a matter that Beijing deems its own.
Mr Grillo, who had founded the party and groomed Mr Di Maio to leadership, sought to counterbalance his former pupil’s newfound and staunch Atlanticism through the publication of an article by Fabio Massimo Parenti, a professor from the International institute Lorenzo De’ Medici in Florence who had previously penned articles for the Global Times, a Chinese daily aligned with the CCP.
“The objective of [Mr Yi’s] meetings [in Europe] is to reinforce mechanisms of cooperation between two key spaces in the Euro Asiatic continent and promote multilateralism, which is under stress because of the irresponsible actions of the United States’ administration,” reads the article, which is titled “China-EU-Italy: containing US irresponsibility.”
After the ensuing praise of Beijing and criticism of the American protectionism, Mr Parenti argued that Italy cannot ban Huawei and similar Chinese tech companies (closely linked to the CCP) from its 5G network, pointing out that if it did, it would risk “remaining behind […] for all we know, Chinese technologies could be more secure than the existing ones.”
The American companies must be kept out instead, continues the author, as “US networks and companies have been constantly spying on the whole world.”
Mr Parenti had previously appeared in Mr Grillo’s personal blog – which is influential among orthodox Five Star members – having authored pro-China articles that, among other things, praised the Chinese response to the coronavirus outbreak, underplayed the Chinese detainment of Uighur Muslims, minimized the “Western narrative” on Hong Kong and dismissed the security risks linked with Chinese-built 5G tech, usually while directing culpability towards the US.
The 5G issue is one where the Five Star Movement has opposed some resistance to their governing partners (the Democrats) when confronted with the evidence that Chinese tech is potentially unsafe. That evidence came from none other than the parliamentary security committee, COPASIR, and its findings are acknowledged elsewhere in the West, including from the European Union.
As 5G is the battleground of a fierce “tech Cold War” between China and the US, and Italy is currently developing a response that would secure its networks by heavily limiting Chinese tech, the question is: will Mr Grillo’s line prevail among his acolytes, and consequently the Italian government?
Tellingly, the 5G matter was not mentioned in the presser after the talks between Mr Di Maio And Mr Yi.
On the other hand, the Democrats have made it abundantly clear that they deem the security risks associated with Chinese 5G are reason enough to curb its adoption as much as possible. They have also argued in favour of the entrance of the American private equity fund KKR in a minor part of Italy’s broadband network, something that Mr Grillo firmly opposed
