Balancing, diplomacy and the Strait of Messina Bridge: Salvini flies to China and Japan, this time for real

It's the Salvini of the East, this time for real. A week between Japan and China to study transport, railways and mobility. Institutional meetings and political implications, in a complicated balance between the Dragon and Washington . The deputy prime minister of the Northern League, the Minister of Transport, announced it yesterday: starting Monday he will fly to Asia. Also on the agenda are meetings with his counterparts in Beijing and Tokyo. And it is precisely from the Japanese capital, where Mario Vattani has been ambassador for a few weeks - appointed by the current government and whose name was also put forward for the decisive seat in Washington - that the deputy prime minister's trip will start, before moving on to Osaka, the city where the Expo is underway. There the deputy prime minister will attend an event on Italian-Japanese relations. Then, on July 7, Salvini will visit the Akashi Bridge, over the strait of the same name: it is the second largest suspended structure in the world . It was built by Ihi Corp, a Japanese company specialized in the sector – it has built similar works all over the world, from the United States to Romania. The deputy prime minister, as revealed by this newspaper, is interested in establishing direct contacts with them, especially now that (his) Strait of Messina Bridge has returned to the forefront thanks to the accounting trick that could allow Italy to also include some investments in infrastructure in the calculation of military spending, so as to reach the 5 percent requested by NATO at the Hague summit. By the way: after days of silence on the subject of rearmament, yesterday Salvini spoke again, abandoning the antimilitarist tones that had characterized his communication. “If among the security expenses we include, for example, strategic works important for Italy, it makes sense,” were the words of the Lega leader, who for weeks has been shooting at the European Union and Ursula von der Leyen's plan. Salvini also added: “I don't have a nightmare about Russian tanks in the centre of Milan”.

Somersaults, changes of direction. And a good dose of balancing act like the one the Northern League deputy prime minister will have to resort to in the second part of his visit, the one dedicated to China. In reality, as Il Foglio reported in January – with Salvini’s confirmation – this trip was already scheduled for May, before being postponed without much explanation, probably so as not to irritate Donald Trump’s diplomacy. The deputy prime minister is expected in Beijing and then on Friday in Shanghai, the final destination of the Asian tour, following the same agenda followed by Giorgia Meloni in last year’s Chinese visit . In Shanghai, according to reports, the Northern League member will visit the port. But, according to his staff, other institutional meetings are being finalized. And as in the case of the prime minister, a meeting with Chen Jining, secretary of the Communist Party of Shanghai and a rising figure in the nomenklatura headed by leader Xi Jinping, cannot be ruled out. For Salvini, however, the mission marks a new point in the relationship with Beijing, after years in which the Dragon was one of the favorite targets. Position softened, and not a little, over time. On June 25, Salvini visited the ambassador of the People's Republic in Italy Jia Guide, a meeting that was probably decisive for the organization of next week. The Lega leader, unlike the Chinese media, did not publicize his presence at the embassy. But for some time now, Salvini has been increasingly at home in those parts. For example, as a guest of honor in January, on the occasion of the Spring Festival - the celebrations for the Lunar New Year - with a subsequent social video and greetings in Chinese. Of course, from time to time there have also been jabs at China, on electric cars or to remember the Tiananmen Square massacre in early June.

A blow to the barrel and one to the hoop, on the other hand Xi remains Trump's main opponent (and perhaps it is no coincidence that just yesterday, on the day of the announcement of the trip to China, Salvini met the American ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta at the MIT). But in the meantime, China has today become for the leader of the Carroccio a model to study on infrastructure. No longer a "regime" or "dictatorship", as he used to define it until a few years ago, so much so that in the summer of 2020 he organized a protest flash mob, in which he was photographed with the sign "We stand with Hong Kong", in front of the Chinese embassy. He protested against the repression, he asked the Italian government to make itself heard with Xi. Who does not seem to have changed much since then. But perhaps Salvini has.

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