All roads lead to Rome for Xi

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times posted on March 22.

All (silk) roads do lead to Rome, as this Saturday Chinese President Xi Jinping and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will sign a memorandum to adhere to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Afterward, Xi becomes a magnanimous version of The Sicilian, visiting the port of Palermo, with Beijing intent on investing in local infrastructure.

Atlanticist hysteria has been raging wildly – with the simplistic narrative focused on the fact that Italy is a G7 member, at the heart of the Mediterranean “mare nostrum”, and crammed with NATO bases. Thus, it cannot “sell out” to China.

Conte and diplomats in Rome have confirmed that this is strictly about economic cooperation, and signing a memorandum is non-binding. Italy has, in fact, been informally aligned with the Belt and Road scheme since 2015 when it became one of the founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which finances scores of BRI projects.

This was followed by China's President Xi arrival yesterday (Monday, 3/25/2019) in France to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Channel NewsAsia reports on this visit so far today. This must be causing apoplexy (def.) for the Empire's Deep State (of which Macron is a member).

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday (Mar 26) stressed the growing convergence between Beijing and the European Union on global issues from climate change to trade, urging the two sides to overcome their "suspicions."