China Maintains Influence Operations in Italy Despite Belt and Road Exit

The Ital­ian Sen­ate on Oct. 9 host­ed a con­fer­ence titled “Chi­nese Influ­ence in the EU: The Cas­es of Italy and East­ern Europe (Roma­nia),” co-orga­nized by Dou­ble­think Lab, Expert Forum and the Glob­al Com­mit­tee for the Rule of Law “Mar­co Pan­nel­la.” The event brought togeth­er a dis­tin­guished pan­el, Tai­wan Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Italy Vin­cent Tsai, Ital­ian Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on EU Poli­cies Pres­i­dent Giulio Terzi di San­t’A­ga­ta, Expert Forum pres­i­dent Sorin Ioni­ta, Ital­ian sen­a­tors Andrea De Pri­amo and Cinzia Pel­le­gri­no, as well as jour­nal­ist Giu­lia Pom­pili of Ital­ian dai­ly Il Foglio. The con­fer­ence exam­ined the evolv­ing dynam­ics between the EU and Chi­na, focus­ing on Bei­jing’s grow­ing influ­ence in Europe, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Italy and parts of east­ern Europe.

Read more: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/10/22/2003845880

Key Points

• Bei­jing exerts influ­ence in Italy through aca­d­e­m­ic part­ner­ships with Con­fu­cius Insti­tutes at 12 uni­ver­si­ties, online hybrid oper­a­tions lever­ag­ing social media and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, and cul­tur­al sup­pres­sion such as obstruc­tion of Shen Yun dance troupe performances.
• Chi­na’s grow­ing use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence plat­forms such as DeepSeek and oth­er advanced tech­nolo­gies is increas­ing­ly viewed by Euro­pean gov­ern­ments as a major nation­al secu­ri­ty risk to demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.
• The Ital­ian Sen­ate’s Com­mit­tees on For­eign Affairs and EU Poli­cies adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for new par­lia­men­tary mea­sures to pre­vent and counter the spread of dis­in­for­ma­tion aimed at sub­vert­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.
• In 65 per­cent of coun­tries glob­al­ly, lead­ing social media plat­forms are owned or con­trolled by enti­ties linked to the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na, ampli­fy­ing pro-Bei­jing nar­ra­tives while silenc­ing dis­sent through sur­veil­lance and monitoring.

Chinese Influence Operations in Italy: Unwitting Enablers, Organizational Conduits, and Local Governments ✅

The Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty has deployed sys­tem­at­ic influ­ence oper­a­tions across Italy’s polit­i­cal spec­trum, tar­get­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, polit­i­cal par­ties, local offi­cials, and main­stream voic­es through cen­tral­ly-guid­ed coop­ta­tion efforts. Key Chi­nese agen­cies active­ly oper­at­ing in Italy include the CCP Inter­na­tion­al Liai­son Depart­ment, the Chi­nese Asso­ci­a­tion for Friend­ship with For­eign Coun­tries, and the Chi­na Coun­cil for the Pro­mo­tion of Inter­na­tion­al Trade.

These oper­a­tions exploit what researchers describe as “knowl­edge asym­me­try” between Chi­nese influ­ence agen­cies and their Ital­ian tar­gets. Using vague appeals to friend­ship, cul­ture, and trade, Bei­jing has enlist­ed main­stream Ital­ian fig­ures as unwit­ting endorsers of dis­course engi­neer­ing that nor­mal­izes CCP total­i­tar­i­an rule. Politi­cians, lob­by­ists, and local inter­me­di­aries serve as prox­ies, repur­pos­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions as instru­ments of CCP policy.

Sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions func­tion as Chi­nese influ­ence con­duits with­in Italy, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Italy-Chi­na Friend­ship Asso­ci­a­tion, the Insti­tute for Chi­nese Cul­ture, and Open­Gate Chi­na. These groups oper­ate across ide­o­log­i­cal divides at nation­al, region­al, and munic­i­pal lev­els. The Italy-Chi­na Par­lia­men­tary Friend­ship Asso­ci­a­tion has orga­nized del­e­ga­tions to Tibet that were asked to relay par­ty pro­pa­gan­da on Chi­nese rule and intro­duce what Bei­jing char­ac­ter­izes as the “real, devel­op­ing new Tibet” to Ital­ian audiences.

Beyond cul­tur­al net­works, local gov­ern­ments joined Belt and Road-themed net­works estab­lished by CCP influ­ence agen­cies, while par­lia­men­tary cir­cles relayed pro­pa­gan­da white­wash­ing human rights abus­es. This influ­ence cam­paign reached its apex in March 2019 when Italy became the first G7 coun­try to join Chi­na’s Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive. Italy hoped the agree­ment would boost exports and attract Chi­nese invest­ment, sign­ing deals worth $2.8 billion.

The eco­nom­ic promis­es proved illu­so­ry. Chi­nese for­eign direct invest­ment in Italy dropped from $650 mil­lion in 2019 to just $33 mil­lion in 2021. Italy for­mal­ly with­drew from the Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive in Decem­ber 2023, acknowl­edg­ing the agree­ment had failed to deliv­er expect­ed ben­e­fits and reflect­ing a strate­gic reassess­ment amid grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal tensions.

Exter­nal References:
— Hijack­ing the main­stream: CCP influ­ence agen­cies and their oper­a­tions in Ital­ian par­lia­men­tary and local pol­i­tics — Sinopsis
— Why we should all pay atten­tion to Chi­na’s influ­ence on Ital­ian pol­i­tics — The Hill
— Why Is Italy With­draw­ing From Chi­na’s Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive? — Coun­cil on For­eign Relations

 Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.