Italo-Chinese economic cooperation in the XXI century: different actors and the search for a strategy

My thesis deals with economic cooperation between Italy and China with particular reference to the last decade approximately, that is to say the period that followed the institutional crisis of early to mid-1990s and registered a renewal in Italo-Chinese relations. Cooperation has proven to be the most important instrument in the definition of Italo-Chinese relations and its focus has been so far the advancement of economic partnership between the two countries. In addition, since the nineties the field of State-industry relations has experienced an important evolution in Italy, and a greater need for institutional support favouring the economic expansion abroad has emerged. Given all these concurrent factors that make the economic cooperation scenario very dynamic at this moment, I decided to investigate how China can represent a decisive element of ‘opportunity and challenge’ (Bradanini, 2005) for the Sistema Italia, so as to see if economic cooperation in the case of China show original aspects, that contradicts the usual vision of a ‘trading State’ or a ‘negotiating State’, referred to Italian inability to act strategically in the sphere of globalization and fulfil the expectations due to its international comparative advantages. Therefore I first defined economic cooperation, and contextualized the notion by means of a critical historical reconstruction of Italo-Chinese relations, aimed at individuating the main feature of Italy’s stance toward China, and then I examined the recent evolution in terms of actors and devices of economic cooperation, its criteria and goals. In order to do so, I structured my work in three sections: national level, sub national level, and the cooperation structures that operate in China, taking into consideration the case of Italian economic cooperation in the Chinese Province of Guangdong. My findings do not confirm the hypothesis of a ‘Chinese exception’ in Italian economic cooperation field. Even though some important achievements have marked the initiatives taken during the last years, they do not challenge the status quo of cooperation. In particular, more advanced fronts of activity, namely the Italian Ministry of the Environment cooperation program and the Italian Regions multiple efforts to sustain the internationalization of Italian local economies in China, do not seem to move beyond conjuncturalism, or a reediting of some of the traditional flaws of central government intervention into the economy.