Written on 31 March 2019.

 

   If one word can capture the sentiment of rural and small-town dwellers in recent years, it is “resentment.”

   I am a scholar who studies politics at the state and local level. Residents of rural and small-town communities believe they are not getting their fair share of government attention and vital resources compared to urban dwellers. They believe that America is moving away from them.

   As the 2020 presidential campaign gears up, these resentful Americans will play a key role. How strong supporters of Donald Trump in the 2016 election vote in 2020 will depend on whether the president has delivered on the promises he made to help them out.

  Will this growing divide affect American politics beyond Trump?

Left behind

   Political scientist Katherine Cramer has spent over a decade doing field work in 27 small Wisconsin towns to understand how people use social class identity to interpret politics. Cramer found that people in these rural areas feel as though they are being ignored by urban elites and urban institutions like government and the media at a time when they are struggling to make ends meet.

   They believe their communities are dying, the economy is leaving them behind, and that young people, money and their livelihoods are going somewhere else.

   They think that major decisions affecting their lives are being made far away in big cities. And perhaps most importantly, they feel that no one is listening to them or their ideas about things that are important to them.

   Most distressing to those living in this situation is the belief that no one, and especially no one in government, really cares.

From resentment to division and deadlock

   To date, the phenomenon of “resentment” has been responsible for adding another layer of heightened division among Americans, including an increase in political polarization.

   That makes it much more difficult for federal government officials, as well as those at the state and local level, to reach consensus on important issues of the day.

   University of California, Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s book, “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right” helps in explaining how this frustration and anger of small-town and rural area dwellers has resulted in increasing political support for Republican candidates, generally, and for Trump, specifically.

   Given their intensifying feelings of resentment for being ignored and left behind, rural and small-town dwellers were particularly receptive to the slogan touted by Trump in his campaign – “Make America Great Again!”

   Trump won the country’s small town and non-metropolitan areas by 63.2 percent to 31.3 percent, with his largest vote shares coming from the most rural areas.

   Like other Republican presidential candidates over the last 10 years, Trump garnered a large majority of the vote in traditional rural areas like Appalachia, the Great Plains and parts of the South.

   Surprisingly, however, Trump also won a substantial proportion of the traditionally Democratic small town and rural vote in several key Midwestern industrial areas. He won 57 percent of that vote in Michigan, 63 percent in Wisconsin and 71 percent in Pennsylvania.

Why Trump triumphed

   Trump implied or clearly promised to repeal Obamacare, build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deport around 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

   Other appealing policies were tax cuts for both businesses and individuals; significant reductions in the regulation of business and industry; and import tariffs on foreign goods that compete unfairly with American-made products.

   Data collected by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (from a national survey of more than 54,000 respondents) clearly show that people living in small towns and rural areas who supported these kinds of policies were decisively more likely to vote for Trump rather than Clinton in 2016.

   Above all, Trump promised a shift in the focus of the national government so that much more attention would be directed to rural areas and small towns and the challenges they faced.

   This evidently buoyed the hope of Trump supporters in these areas that they would be getting something closer to their fair share of government attention and resources.

Voting implications

   There is ample evidence of voting patterns in recent years – even before the 2016 election – that suggest that voters in rural areas and small towns were increasingly voting for Republican candidates in national and state elections. This trend was quite visible from Republican and Democratic vote proportions in the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections.

   In 2008, 53 percent of rural voters cast ballots for the Republican presidential candidate; 59 percent did in 2012; and 62 percent did in 2016.

   This was most clear in the 2016 election in the 2,332 counties that make up small-town and rural America, where Trump swamped Hillary Clinton by winning 60 percent as opposed to 34 percent of the vote.

   Trump’s 26-point advantage over Clinton in rural America was much greater than had been the case for Republican presidential nominees in the four previous elections.

   The Trump appeal and the growing urban-rural division in the country is also evident from the fact that Trump’s vote percentage in rural America was 29 points higher than he received in the nation’s urban counties and far larger than for Republican presidential nominees between 2000 and 2012.

   Moreover, responses to a 2017 Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of rural and small-town voters in the 2016 election indicate that they were more likely to vote for Trump and also agree with him on a variety of issues.

   Those included immigration, tax cuts, eliminating regulations on businesses, making better trade deals, targeting more infrastructure projects and federal government services to rural areas and small towns, and appointing more conservative judges to the federal courts.

   But, did this trend of strong support from rural voters for Republican candidates, including Trump, continue into the 2018 midterm election?

   About half of Trump’s ideas and policy proposals have been accomplished, with the others yet to gain traction in Congress, two years after his election. So his record of delivering for these rural voters is mixed.

   Nevertheless, they stuck with Trump in the 2018 election.

“Rural voters stormed to the polls in virtually unprecedented numbers in 2018 and once again delivered for the president they voted for in 2016,” The Hill reported. They delivered Trump “a handful of critical Senate and gubernatorial elections in ruby red states.”

  While not totally surprising, the Trump camp did not know what to expect going into the midterm election, given the numerous investigations of the president and his low public approval rating.

   Somewhat more surprising is what has been happening in a purple state like Florida, where Republicans have improved on both their turnout and overall performance in rural areas for several elections in a row.

   Newly elected Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ran ahead of Trump’s 2016 performance and former Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s 2014 vote share in 13 of 16 counties in the Florida Panhandle. Rick Scott unseated longtime Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by piling up large margins in the small towns and rural areas of the state. Similar scenarios in U.S. Senate races took place in key states like Missouri, Indiana, Texas and Tennessee, where Republicans won huge victories in rural counties.

Beyond Trump

   Survey data collected from over 90,000 people by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago in November 2018 paint a vivid picture of the continuing urban-rural/small-town divide.

   Results show that residents of small towns and rural areas are much more supportive of the Republican Party and its candidates than people in urban and suburban areas.

   In addition, the most ardent supporters of Republicans are among those small-town and rural dwellers who are white and male, have less than a college education and vote on a regular basis.

   I believe that the urban-rural/small-town divide will continue to act as a major force in politics for the remainder of the Trump era – and probably longer.

J. Edwin Benton -- The Conversation

Written on 25 March 2019.

   Die Via della Magliana in Rom ist eines der vielen ärmlichen Viertel der Ewigen Stadt. In den sechziger Jahren erbaut um den Zuwanderern aus den Abruzzen-Bergen Mietwohnungen zu bieten, wie sie sich wünschen: mit viel Humankontakt und wenig Sonnenlicht. Seither ist das Viertel vergammelt. In die Wohnungen der bäuerlichen Erstbewohner, die ihren Müll teilweise noch durch die Fenster entsorgten, sind Migranten eingezogen aus Südosteuropa, Asien und Afrika. Buntes Gewimmel vor einer Bar/Schnellrestaurant, die ich seit vielen Jahren gern besuche.

   Der Eigentümer der Bar hatte ein Problem: seine Tische am Plätzchen mit dem stillgelegten Brunnen wurden stundenlang besetzt von Roma aus dem Lager unter den Tiberbrücken und von Arabern, die dort ihre Geschäfte abwickelten, ohne viel zu konsumieren. Nach Jahren des vergeblichen Kampfes gab er auf und verkaufte an Chinesen. Sie behielten die italienischen Baristi, besetzten aber exklusiv die Kasse und achteten streng auf minimale Preisunterschiede wie etwa den zwischen einem latte macchiato und einem caffè latte.

   Nun, zwei Jahre später sind die italienischen baristi noch da – freundlich und kompetent wie immer. Aber die Araber und die Roma sind weg, grossteils wenigstens. Normale Kaffeetrinker haben die Tische zurück erobert. Wie haben das die Chinesen geschafft? Mit beharrlicher Strenge? Mit glaubhaften Drohungen?

   Immer öfter steigen Chinesen in das uritalienische Geschäft der Espresso-Herstellung ein. Lange Öffungszeiten scheuen sie nicht, und ihre mitarbeitenden Familienmitglieder lernen fleissig italienisch.

   Die Chinesen sind aus Italiens Wirtschaft nicht mehr wegzudenken. Ihre Billigläden mit Haushaltswaren, Schundtextilien und Krimskrams beherrschen den Markt und platzieren sich mitunter sogar auf Sichtweite, an ihren mit Plastikblumen dekorierten Eingängen weithin erkennbar. Was in den USA der Dollarstore ist, ist in Italien der Chinese. Fast alle Souvenirläden in den Touristenzentren sind chinesisch und verkaufen – wie kann es anders sein – chinesische Ware: Kolosseum und St. Peter in Plastik, millionenfach.

   So ist es kein Zufall, dass Peking für sein globales Expansionsprojekt der "Neuen Seidenstrasse" Italien als Endstation in Europa ausgewählt hat. Italien bietet China Zugang zu und indirekte Mitgliedschaft im grössten Markt der Welt: der Europäischen Union. Wie das geht, zeigt Prato, die Industriestadt bei Florenz. Seit Jahrzehnten existiert hier, in der Heimat Curzio Malapartes, eine grosse chinesische Kolonie, die vor allem Textilfabriken betreibt, deren Produkte – wie nützlich – das Etikett “Made in Italy” tragen, so wie die Produkte der mikronesischen Mariana-Inseln “Made in USA” sind. Nehmen wir an, eine chinesische Automarke baue eine Fabrik in Italien, mit chinesischem Geld, mit dem knowhow europäischer Ingenieure und importierten chinesischen Arbeitern und Managern: das Produkt wäre ein italienisches Auto, zollfrei in 27 Ländern zu verkaufen.

   Könnte Italiens Regierung zu einem derartigen Projekt nein sagen? Die Wahrscheinlichkeit ist gering. China ist gross, stark und rücksichtslos. Warum Peking ärgern, wenn es in einem Lande investieren will, aus dem die internationalen Investoren flüchten? Die Fünf-Sterne-Partei von Beppe Grillo und Luigi di Maio klammert sich an China in der vagen Hoffnung, das Reich der Mitte werde das vermutlich dem wirtschaftlichen Untergang geweihte Italien vor seinem selbstverschuldeten Schicksal bewahren. Europa und Amerika protestieren zwar gegen die italo-chinesische Allianz, sind aber wohl heimlich froh, dass Peking mit an der Last Italien tragen will.

   Noch gibt es zwei gegensätzliche Sichtweisen der neuen Allianz: die eine prognostiziert, dass China mit Infrastruktur-Investitionen Italien weiter in die Verschuldung treiben und von Peking abhängig machen werde – Modell Afrika –; die andere Vision denkt, dass China zu blauäugig an das Problem herangeht und im italienischen Morast versinken wird, wie so viele andere.  Wie auch immer: es wird spannend werden, zu beobachten, wie sich China mit Italiens wirklicher Macht, den Mafias, auseinandersetzen wird. 

   Dafür, dass Chinas Bäume nicht in den Himmel Italiens wachsen werden, sorgt eine andere Grossmacht. Nein, nicht Brüssel und auch nicht Washington. Moskau ist es, das sich die Lega von Matteo Salvini mit Geld dienstbar gemacht hat. Die derzeit stärkste Partei Italiens erhielt für den letzten Wahlkampf zwar kein Geld, wohl aber eine Lieferung russischen Erdöls, die sich leicht monetisieren liess. Salvini weiss, was er Moskau schuldig ist: bei dem jüngsten Besuch des chinesischen Staatslenkers Xi Jinping blieb er dem offiziellen Abendessen demonstrativ fern und entschuldigte sich mit dem regionalen Wahlkampf in der Basilikata.

   Das russische Störfeuer dürfte China wenig kümmern. Während die Fünf Sterne die angebliche Harmlosigkeit des Abkommens mit Peking beteuern, hat Xi klar ausgedrückt, dass er enge wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit anvisiert. Man darf neugierig sein, wann die ersten chinesischen Wagen über Italiens Autostrade rollen werden.

Benedikt Brenner

Written on 30 March 2019.

An individual’s level of religious devotion and Chinese-language skills are factors determining the severity of punishment, a researcher says.

   China’s crackdown in Xinjiang province has attracted increasing international attention over the past year. All Muslim groups in the region are now finding themselves targeted, new research suggests. And the internment camp system has evolved into a hierarchy of punishments, ranging from the loss of travel privileges to forced labor to incarceration.

   Mehmet Volkan Kasikci, a Turkish researcher who gathers the testimonies of survivors and their relatives in Kazakhstan, asserts that simply being on the receiving end of an email from abroad is now sufficient cause for an extended stay in the camp system. “Contact with the outside is now the number one reason” for Muslims in Xinjiang being confined, he said.

   Kasikci estimates that roughly 10-to-12 percent of the Uighur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz population in Xinjiang is now cycling through the various levels of Beijing’s coercive reeducation and forced labor system. There are an estimated 12 million Uighurs overall in Xinjiang, along with roughly 1.5 million Kazakhs and 220,000 Kyrgyz, along with smaller numbers of Tatars and Uzbeks. Those groups are culturally Turkic and Muslim. But Beijing is now also rounding up members of an ethnically Chinese Muslim group known as Dungans, or Hui, he says.

   Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, roughly 200,000 ethnic Kazakhs have left Xinjiang and moved to their titular homeland, Kazakhstan. “Almost all of these Oralman [emigres] now know someone who is in a camp,” Kasikci, a doctoral student at Arizona State University, told Eurasianet.

   The role of Kazakhs in shedding light on the camp system threatens to strain relations between Kazakhstan and China. Earlier in March, Kazakhstani authorities detained an outspoken activist, Serikzhan Bilash, the leader of an unregistered Almaty-based organization, Ata-Jurt, which has played a leading role in exposing details about the crackdown in Xinjiang. Bilash, who was accused of stirring up ethnic hatred, is now under house arrest.

   Chinese officials have justified the camps as a necessary measure to keep terrorism and separatism in check. Uighur radicals have carried out violent attacks against Chinese targets in recent years as a form of extreme resistance to what they describe as forced-assimilation measures.

   On March 26, the official Xinhua news agency reported a top Communist Party official, Wang Yang, as saying “the general situation in Xinjiang has been continuously stable and keeps on improving, and people's sense of gain, happiness and safety keeps growing.” The report made no specific mention of the camps, but hinted that the system could be expanded. Wang, who had just completed a visit to Xinjiang, also stressed a need to address widespread poverty in the region.

   Wang’s statements, combined with the fact that all Muslim groups in Xinjiang are now being subjected to internment, suggest that Beijing is moving far beyond its original goal of containing radical resistance and is striving to culturally bulldoze the region.

   Kasikci compares the Xinjiang camp system to that established by the British in South Africa during the Boer war in the early 1900s. The British practice of confining mainly Dutch-speaking farmers in South Africa gave birth to the term “concentration” camp.

   A primary objective of the Xinjiang crackdown is the elimination of alternative centers of authority. For this reason, “almost all the imams” in the region have been sent away for reeducation, Kasikci said.

   Kasikci describes five levels of punishment for those who run afoul of authorities in Xinjiang. The harshest level is prison, followed by internment camps and forced-labor factories. Less harsh levels are house arrest and passport confiscation, which, in effect, restrict an individual to his or her town or city of residence.

   Relatively few of those ensnared in the crackdown have been found guilty of any crime. Thus, the prison population of Xinjiang Muslims is comparatively small. The vast majority is dispatched to internment facilities, where detainees endure prolonged periods of indoctrination. Those deemed sufficiently “reeducated” often “graduate” to work in forced-labor factories, Kasikci said. In many cases, detainees work in the factories by day and return to the camps to spend the night. The factory-camp regimen is a relatively recent phenomenon, with the practice beginning in the middle of last year.

   Virtually all those released are then subjected to house arrest.

   Specific conditions inside the internment camps are difficult to pin down, Kasikci says. In camps housing those deemed most unreliable, detainees can be subjected to some forms of torture, he said, citing witness accounts he has gathered. Apparently, an individual’s level of religious devotion and Chinese-language ability are factors determining where a detainee is sent. Those who are more devout and less fluent in Chinese are apt to be dispatched to the toughest camps.

   In some camps, detainees are forcibly given medications, Kasikci said, again citing witness testimony: “We don’t know whether these medicines will have a long-term effect.”

   Even at camps with the easiest regimens, detainees are given access to toilets for only two minutes per day, Kasikci has found.

   Many detainees who have been released show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: some are so shell-shocked that they don’t immediately recognize family members, he says.

   Kasikci bases his assessments on the reports of mainly ethnic Kazakhs who have relayed accounts of their experiences to friends and relatives in Kazakhstan. A small number of former detainees have even made their way to Kazakhstan. Yet many of these individuals are reluctant to disclose details about their experiences because officials have threatened that friends and relatives still in China will face punishment as retribution. However a few former detainees now abroad – such as Sayragul Sauytbay, who is awaiting an asylum hearing in Kazakhstan – have spoken expansively about their ordeals.

Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

Written on 17 March 2019.

Perché tante polemiche sul Memorandum of Understanding tra Italia e Cina? La firma di un paese fondatore della Nato e dell’Unione europea è un successo per la politica estera cinese. Per il nostro paese sono chiari i costi politici, meno i benefici. Governo in confusione

   A meno di dieci giorni dalla firma annunciata – e confermata – di un Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) tra Italia e Cina sulla Belt and Road Initiative, che avverrà nel corso della prima visita del presidente cinese Xi Jinping a Roma il 21 marzo, l’unica certezza è che la confusione regna sovrana, ovunque e a ogni livello.

   A cominciare dallo stesso governo e delle sue due anime: la Lega, nelle parole di Matteo Salvini, si dichiara scettica, nonostante il vero deus ex machina dell’operazione sia un suo esponente, il sottosegretario allo Sviluppo economico Michele Geraci, che risponde però a Luigi Di Maio, leader del M5s, molto meno sensibile alle esigenze della componente produttiva e lavorativa del paese.

   Sulla divergenza interna si innesta un conflitto di competenze a livello ministeriale e istituzionale, dal momento che il MoU presenta evidentemente tutte le caratteristiche e la natura di un documento di politica estera, sebbene con un formato insolito per una democrazia occidentale, e pertanto la Farnesina ne ha rivendicato la competenza rispetto al ministero dello Sviluppo economico.

   La confusione è stata accompagnata, e in parte causata, da una voluta disinformazione sulla natura e sui contenuti dell’accordo. Fino al 12 marzo, non si conosceva neanche una bozza dell’accordo, così vari esponenti del governo hanno potuto millantare per giorni che il Memorandum non fosse altro che un accordo economico e commerciale, per aumentare l’export italiano in Cina e gli investimenti cinesi in Italia, “dimenticando” peraltro che la politica commerciale è competenza dell’UE e non degli stati membri.

   Dopo la pubblicazione della bozza sul Corriere della Sera, Geraci ha infatti prontamente smentito quanto aveva detto sino ad allora, non potendo più nascondere la mancanza di competenza istituzionale del suo ministero. Da quando circola la bozza, però, la confusione è aumentata ancor di più. Al di là dell’aura apparentemente romantica di quella che i cinesi abilmente chiamano “iniziativa”, che ha un nome ufficiale – Belt and Road Initiative – ma che in Italia viene continuamente chiamata “nuova via della seta”, come a volerne sottolineare l’aspetto intrinsecamente benefico, la Bri è in realtà un progetto di sviluppo interno e internazionale con importanti connotazioni strategiche.

   Il 24 ottobre 2017 il perseguimento della Bri è stato inserito nella Costituzione cinese, che coincide con la Costituzione del Partito comunista cinese. È dunque oggi un obiettivo strategico di stato, non una mera iniziativa economica e commerciale. Include l’obiettivo di migliorare la connettività tra Cina ed Europa, attraverso reti di trasporto e logistica, ma accanto a obiettivi molto più estesi e strategici, come integrazione finanziaria, cooperazione nelle infrastrutture (non solo di trasporto ma anche energetiche), libero scambio, scambi culturali e di persone.

   I contenuti dell’accordo Cos’è il Memorandum of Understanding e perché l’imminente firma da parte dell’Italia crea tanto scompiglio? Si tratta di un documento di intesa (non un contratto, né un trattato, né un accordo) sugli ambiti della cooperazione bilaterale nei settori dei trasporti, infrastrutture, logistica, ambiente e finanza. Non ci sono obiettivi né contenuti precisi, ma espressioni vaghe, per esempio su un avanzamento delle relazioni politiche tra i due paesi firmatari. Come tutti gli altri MoU firmati dalla Cina, gli ambiti di cooperazione sono gli stessi cinque che costituiscono i risultati ufficiali previsti per la Bri: coordinamento delle politiche, connettività e infrastrutture, libero scambio, integrazione finanziaria e scambi culturali. Da una prima e rapida analisi della bozza concordata con l’Italia, ci sono differenze che non sembrano marginali.

   Alcune sono apparentemente sottili differenze di espressione che ne sottendono però di significative nella portata dell’influenza che il documento potrà esercitare. Per esempio, per quanto concerne le controversie, vale sempre il principio degli incontri amichevoli tra le due parti? Nel testo si parla di dialogo amichevole con incontri “diretti”. Come si collocano i tribunali Bri in questo contesto? In altri casi, invece, le differenze sono evidenti e mostrano l’intenzione di stabilire un’intesa più stretta. Insomma, secondo Chris Devonshire-Ellis, fondatore di Dezan Shira, il “MoU sembra largamente innocuo, ma contiene i semi di quello che potrebbe essere usato in futuro come strumento diplomatico nella forma di un appiglio a presunte intese già raggiunte sui temi inclusi nel documento”. E se l’interpretazione dei contenuti del documento è tolta dalla sfera di competenza dei tribunali internazionali per affidarla a un “contesto amichevole di consultazioni dirette”, è evidente il rischio di divergenze interpretative orchestrate per sollevare potenziali incidenti diplomatici.

   Tutte le perplessità diffuse dopo la pubblicazione della bozza hanno spinto il governo italiano a limare i contenuti politici del documento, quindi ancora oggi non è chiaro quale sarà la versione finale. Una firma che ci isola Al di là dei dubbi elencati, perché mai la firma italiana sarebbe diversa da quella degli altri tredici paesi europei che hanno già siglato il Memorandum? Paese fondatore dell’Unione e tuttora tra i pilastri dell’Europa unita, nonché membro fondatore della Nato, l’Italia sarebbe il primo paese del G7 a firmare un documento d’intesa con Pechino. Sin dal suo annuncio, la disponibilità dell’Italia ha fatto inalberare sia Washington, per i timori concreti di un’ingerenza cinese in settori strategici per la sicurezza nazionale (che non sono soltanto le infrastrutture digitali in prospettiva del 5G, ma tutte le infrastrutture di trasporto e logistica e le reti di distribuzione dell’energia in cui la Cina chiede una maggior presenza) e per le conseguenze inevitabili che avrebbe sul ruolo del nostro paese nell’alleanza Nordatlantica, sia Bruxelles, che da tempo cerca di costruire una posizione condivisa in Europa sul futuro delle relazioni economiche con Pechino.

   Non è vero, come si sente e si legge sulla stampa nazionale, che anche Francia e Germania siano in procinto di firmare. Non lo hanno mai considerato. Parigi ha concordato una dichiarazione congiunta che include scambi culturali e scientifici e firmerà una decina di accordi molto specifici e concreti durante la visita di Xi a Parigi, che segue quella romana. Perplessi sono anche coloro che sono disposti a ignorare o accettare le conseguenze geopolitiche di fronte a obiettivi concreti – e condivisibili – di aumenti dell’export italiano in Cina (e non tanto dell’interscambio, come spesso indicano i cinesi nei loro obiettivi bilaterali) e dei capitali cinesi investiti nei progetti infrastrutturali italiani. Nel documento non c’è nulla di concreto.

   In ogni caso, si sarebbe potuto procedere in modo diverso, come la Germania, inanellando collaborazioni e progetti comuni, strette di mano davanti a risultati mutualmente benefici e non a documenti fumosi. Anche con la firma del Memorandum, rimarranno la concorrenza interna e le discordie tra le diverse parrocchie italiche e mancherà sempre una visione nazionale.

   Un esempio della differenza di approccio tra Italia e Germania è dato dalle connessioni ferroviarie: a Duisburg, Angela Merkel ha stretto la mano a Li Keqiang all’arrivo del primo treno dalla Cina; a Mortara, il primo treno diretto a Chengdu è partito sotto gli occhi di pochi interessati, e le difficoltà logistiche e finanziarie della tratta sono state ignorate dal governo italiano. Il secondo treno non è mai partito.

   Quali rischi corre l’Italia, nell’immediato? Quello già concreto è l’isolamento in Europa. Come primo effetto politico, infatti, l’Italia ha votato contro lo schema per lo screening degli investimenti esteri nell’Unione, di cui peraltro è stata promotrice. Il decalogo di azioni e suggerimenti per la gestione delle relazioni con la Cina pubblicato il 12 marzo dalla Commissione europea arriva tardi, ma sempre in tempo utile per aiutare gli stati membri in decisioni troppo grandi per i singoli paesi. Potrebbe essere usato come leva per alzare di molto il livello della negoziazione con Pechino e, al contempo, salvare quel poco di reputazione che resta all’Italia in Europa.

Alessia Amighini -- Lavoce.info