(Adnkronos) – China is a “key interlocutor” in a rapidly changing world full of ever-greater challenges and friendship and dialogue with the Asian superpower “is of fundamental importance”, Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella said on Friday during a state visit to Beijing.
“The great changes that are occurring n the world are intense, profound and rapid and present major challenges for humanity,” Mattarella told his counterpart Xi Jinping.
In the current, polarised international climate, which prevents “a common, convergent examination of these challenges and the problems they present”, it is all the more important to highlight the friendship and collaboration that mark Italy’s relations with China, Mattarella argued.
“We assign crucial importance to dialogue with China, a key player on the international stage,” Mattarella underlined.
Mattarella was speaking during talks in Beijing between Italy and China’s delegations on the second of his six-day state visit to China.
The visit aims to re-set economic and political relations after Italy withdrew last December from China’s flagship Belt and Road global infrastructure scheme, and to revitalise a 20-year-old bilateral strategic partnership.
Mattarella’s visit to Beijing follows one by Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni in July – her first since taking office – during which she vowed to “re-launch” relations with China and announced she had signed a three-year plan to deepen cooperation.
Mattarella referenced the three-year bilateral cooperation plan, saying he hoped the plan would “lead to a rapid convocation of the bodies it envisages to further deepen our collaboration”.
Mattarella, who enjoys warm ties with Xi, thanked him for “such a warm and friendly welcome”, underlining his “great esteem and amity” for China’s leader and “the flourishing trust and cooperation” between their countries.
