Italy’s Encounters with Modern China: Imperial Dreams, Strategic Ambitions

285 Pages·2014·1.84 MB·English

by  Maurizio Marinelli

Italy’s Encounters with
Modern China
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Italy’s Encounters with
Modern China
Imperial Dreams, Strategic
Ambitions
Edited by
Maurizio M arinelli and
Giovanni Andornino
ITALY’S ENCOUNTERS WITH MODERN CHINA
Copyright © Maurizio Marinelli and Giovanni Andornino, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-29092-2
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-45064-0 ISBN 978-1-137-29093-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137290939
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: January 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Figures and Tables v ii
Introduction i x
Maurizio Marinelli and Giovanni Andornino
Abbreviations x xi
1 Projecting I talianità on the Chinese Space: The
Construction of the “Aristocratic” Concession in
Tianjin (1901–1947) 1
Maurizio Marinelli
2 At the Dawn of Modern Italo-Chinese Relations:
Ludovico Nocentini’s Experience 2 7
Aglaia De Angeli
3 The Italian Presence in China: Historical Trends and
Perspectives (1902–1947) 4 9
Guido Samarani
4 Rethinking the Distance, Reframing the Exotic:
Italian Tales of Shanghai through the Republican and
Early Maoist Eras 6 7
Laura De Giorgi
5 The Beginning and the End of the Idyllic Relations
between Mussolini’s Italy and Chiang Kai-shek’s China
(1930–1937) 8 9
Michele Fatica
6 The Normalization of Relations between Italy and the
People’s Republic of China 1 17
Enrico Fardella
7 Strategic Ambitions in Times of Transition: Key
Patterns in Contemporary Italy-China Relations 1 47
Giovanni Andornino
vi Contents
8 Economic Relations between Italy and China 1 71
Giorgio Prodi
9 The Role of the Italian Development Cooperation in
Sino-Italian Relations 2 01
Rosario Centola
10 Italy’s Engagement with the People’s Republic of China
in the Context of the EU-China Strategic Partnership 2 19
Pietro Sferra Carini
Bibliography 2 47
Notes on Contributor s 2 51
Index 255
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Cemetery and marshes in the territory of the
Italian concession 2
1.2 Map drawn in November 1901 by the coast guard
Filippo Vanzini 1 4
5.1 Book cover of Margherita Sarfatti, Dux 9 0
5.2 Fron t page of the Town and Sportsman , vol. 2,
no. 8, August 1935 9 1
5.3 The Dux as soldier, orator, statesman, farmer,
and flyer 9 2
5.4 The degree of Yu Pin. Il Corriere della Sera ,
November 17, 1933 9 5
5.5–5.6 Document dated July 19, 1935. Signed by
Bartolomeo Chinazzi 1 00
5.7 “Signor Mussolini gift plane arrives,” North
China Daily News , 5 August 1935 1 01
5.8 The entrance of the SINAW factory 1 02
7.1 Visits of heads of state, heads of government,
or foreign ministers from and to countries in the
Asia-Pacific region 1 59
7.2 China-related resolutions, orders of the day, and
questions raised before the Italian Parliament,
XVI Legislature (2008–2012) 1 61
7.3 Divergence in Italy’s voting behaviour vis-à-vis
P5 countries at the UN Human Rights Council 1 64
8.1 Trade dynamics between Italy and China 1 76
8.2 China’s trade balance with select EU countries 1 85
Tables
8.1 Economic structures of China and Italy compared 1 74
8.2 Chinese imports from Italy 1 77
viii Figures and Tables
8.3 Italian imports according to broad economic
categories (BEC) codes 1 79
8.4 Chinese exports to Italy 1 80
8.5 Top ten Italian products exported to China 1 82
8.6 Top ten Chinese products imported in Italy 1 84
8.7 FDI in China 1 86
Introduction
Maurizio Marinelli and Giovanni Andornino
T
he history of relations between Italy and China has long been
beclouded by myths, projection biases, intellectualization, and, not
infrequently, stereotypes. What has hindered the development of a
sustained and productive engagement and cross-cultural dialogue
between the two countries in the modern era? Does the all-too-
common misinterpretation lie in the problematic nexus between
geographical and cultural distance, or is there something more (his-
torically, politically, and economically) that deserves to be explored?
These pivotal questions represent the challenge that has motivated
us to put together this edited volume. We believe that the often sim-
plistic imagery constructed around the relationship between the two
countries is no accident, nor can a superficial reference to the “tyranny
of distance” entirely account for the diffuse illiteracy in the multiple
encounters between two polities that are otherwise recognized as
ancient civilizational matrixes and that today rank among the ten larg-
est economies in the world. Michael Yahuda used the expression “the
tyranny of distance” to epitomize the geographical chasm and physical
gulf that allegedly contributed to perceptual distance and misunder-
standings in the Sino-European encounter.1 However, the salience of
the geopolitical datum, originally studied by Geoffrey Blainey with
reference to Australia’s “distance” from the rest of the world, 2 is
essentially reversed in the case of Italy’s engagement with China: it is
not the remoteness of the interlocutor, but rather the p roximity— to
the point of encapsulation, as in the case of the Holy See—of several
powerful and entrenched global actors that has historically determined
Italy’s structural fragility in pursuing a coherent foreign policy toward
partners lying outside its core strategic horizon. 3
China has traditionally been one such partner. Italy’s projection
toward the Celestial Empire—and then Republican and Communist
China—has mostly developed as a peripheral extension of a broader,
fundamentally Eurocentric (and later Euro-Atlantic) game, with