In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the «Belt and Road Initiative» (BRI), aiming at building a new platform for international cooperation and creating new momentum for shared development. Since then, the BRI has opened a path for high quality development and common prosperity for countries along the route, becoming a real global platform serving more than half of the world’s population.

Italy’s officially joining the China-led Belt and Road Initiative sparked a fierce debate. By analysing five fields of cooperation, the volume sheds light on whether the bilateral agreement has brought about an intensification of bilateral collaboration as wished by the Italian government as the time and whether the concerns around it have materialized.