In March, during President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country, China and Italy signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly advance the building of the Belt and Road. With the move, Italy became the first member of the G7 major economies to sign a MoU on Belt and Road cooperation.

Over the past years, a large number of developing countries have participated in the joint construction of the Belt and Road, but many developed countries have not. Italy took the brave step to become the first major European economy to officially join the Belt and Road Initiative, creating a new milestone for the initiative.

President Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, citing the historic symbolism of the ancient Silk Road. The Silk Road, seemingly a mere system of trade routes, was in essence a network for communication between civilizations, including people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the East and the West. Following the principles of "extensive consultation, joint contributions and shared benefits", the Belt and Road Initiative, by virtue of its fairness, equality and inclusiveness, has been widely supported by the international community as it is in accordance with most countries' common interests and their willingness to promote peace and development.

Italy's decision to join the Belt and Road Initiative is partly from the country's involvement with the ancient Silk Road, and partly from the country's economic situation. The world economy has been battling low growth ever since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008. The European economy has witnessed a sluggish recovery, with Italy mired in the longest and most severe economic recession since World War II, with negative growth in three of the 10 years. Resuming economic growth, creating more jobs and stepping out of long-term political turmoil have become a priority for Italian politicians.

Italy saw an opportunity for growth in Belt and Road cooperation, especially through successful cases of joint projects in other southern European countries including Greece and Portugal. At a seminar on diplomatic policies, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said he was very glad to seize the opportunity and participate in the joint construction of the Belt and Road and is convinced that it will help to fully tap the potential of Italy-China cooperation. He told journalists that participating in Belt and Road cooperation will provide many opportunities for Italy, including an increase in foreign trade. China is Italy's largest trading partner in Asia and Italy China's fifth-largest trading partner in the European Union. The two countries are highly complementary in a wide range of fields, offering plenty of room for cooperation. Hence, signing up to the Belt and Road Initiative is a rational and pragmatic strategic choice for Italy. As pointed out by an article in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, Italy will benefit a lot from joint construction of the Belt and Road as the initiative is beneficial for its economic growth and social stability. China will also benefit from the cooperation amid win-win results.

In his book The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, the late Italian economic historian Carlo M. Cipolla says that humans fall into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid. If a person takes an action and suffers a loss while producing a gain to others, he acted helplessly. If a person takes an action by which he makes a gain while yielding a gain also to others, he acted intelligently. If a person takes an action by which he makes a gain while causing others a loss, he acted as a bandit. Finally, a stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. Therefore, it's intelligence that leads to win-win results and stupidity that causes lose-lose results. In today's world, there are few bandits but a large number of stupid persons. We should be the intelligent ones!

As an important power in today's world, Europe should have its own voice, take its own path and control its own destiny. China is happy to see a united, prosperous Europe, which will add stability to today's unstable world. China and Europe have a common interest in deepening mutually beneficial and practical cooperation; have a shared commitment to safeguarding multilateralism and an open world economy and opposing protectionism and unilateralism; and share common goals on improving global governance and safeguarding world peace and stability. The two countries should strengthen strategic mutual trust and devote themselves to advancing the partnership, improving the global governance system and safeguarding multilateralism to inject stability, certainty and predictability to a fast-changing world.

In April, China and the European Union signed a joint statement on advancing cooperation at the 21st China-EU leaders' meeting in Brussels, in which the two sides stressed they will continue to strengthen the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative and the EU's strategy for improving Europe-Asia connectivity, deepen cooperation under the framework of connectivity platforms and jointly enhance sustainability and inclusiveness of Europe-Asia connectivity. The signing of such a document with far-reaching significance is a major step toward win-win results.

The author is director-general of the Social Development Department at the National Development and Reform Commission.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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