Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations, Routledge, 2024

Orazio Coco, Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations:  From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War, London: Routlegde, 2024, 224 Pp.

A growing body of scholarship has underscored the historical significance of Italy’s interactions with China. However, following the publication of a pathbreaking volume edited by Maurizio Marinelli and Giovanni Andornino in 2014, Italy’s Encounter with Modern China, a systematic analysis of Sino-Italian relations remained absent from English-language scholarship on Italian studies.

Orazio Coco’s Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War brilliantly addresses this gap providing a clear and comprehensive survey of diplomatic ties and political interactions that have linked Italy and China from the late 19th century to World War II. No English-language study had undertaken such a broad historical examination. Groundbreaking in its scope, Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations thus offers the first cohesive and meticulously researched account of Italy’s political and economic engagement with China after the formal establishment of bilateral relations between the two nations in 1866.

In doing so, Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations engages in an invisible yet invaluable dialogue with a robust and expanding critical discourse on Italy’s political with China which, however, has been mostly confined to Italian-language scholarship. This includes foundational works like Mario Filippo Pini’s Italia e Cina, 60 anni tra passato e future (Rome: L’Asino d’Oro Edizioni, 1996) Laura De Giorgi and Guido Samarani’s Lontane, vicine: Le relazioni fra Cina e Italia nel Novecento (Rome: Carocci, 2011), Stefano Beltrame’s Breve Storia degli Italiani in Cina (Rome: Luiss University Press, 2019) along with specialized studies on the history of the Tianjin concession (Alessandro di Meo, Tientsin. La concessione italiana. Storia delle relazioni tra Italia e Cina (1866-1947), Rome: GBE, 2019) Galeazzo Ciano’s tenure as Italy’s consul in Shanghai (Vincenzo Moccia, La Cina di Ciano, Limena: libreriauniversitaria, 2014) or the Catholic Church’s political and religious diplomacy towards China (Paolo de Giovanni, I cattolici italiani e la Cina, Milan: Guerini e Associati, 2023, Xie Sijie, Un lungo cammino: Prodromi ed esiti della politica diplomatica tra Santa Sede e Cina, Rome: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2023). Yet no English language monograph had so far addressed the history of Sino-Italian relations in a systematic manner. Coco’s volume thus makes a commendable contribution by presenting the first comprehensive history of Italy’s political relations with China to English-speaking audiences. Given the significance of the topic, Sino-Italian Relations is a welcome addition to both Italian studies and the broader historiography of Italy’s political-economic ties with Asia, illuminating a chapter of diplomatic history long relegated to institutional archives and the private writings of its protagonists.

Drawing on a vast array of archival and primary sources, Coco's volume meticulously traces the evolution of Italy's China policy from the formal establishment of bilateral relations in the late 19th century. The opening chapter, "Sino-Italian Relations in the Nineteenth Century," analyzes the initial diplomatic and commercial engagements between the Kingdom of Italy and the Qing dynasty. Coco effectively demonstrates how Italy's early approach to the Qing Empire mimicked an ill-conceived and unsuccessful colonial ambition. Following the unequal treaties imposed on China by European powers, Italy sought its own "place in the sun" in 1899 by hastily demanding a territorial concession at Sanmen Bay (三门县) in Zhejiang Province. However, this ill-conceived diplomatic initiative - undermined by limited political and military leverage - ended in humiliating failure when Chinese authorities firmly rejected the demand. Coco sheds light on this little-known episode of Italy's colonial ambitions. The chapter then examines Italy's participation in the international coalition against the Boxer Rebellion (1900-1901), culminating in the establishment of its sole Chinese concession in Tianjin in 1901.

Italy's relations with China remained stagnant until the 1920s, when the rise of Fascism marked a new chapter in bilateral relations with the recently established Republic of China. Chapter 2, "The Interwar Period – A New Beginning," examines how the Fascist regime revitalized ties with China, motivated primarily by prestige-seeking and international recognition, as well as by unspoken rivalry with Nazi Germany. Coco analyzes the purported ideological alignment between Italian Fascism and Chiang Kai-shek's authoritarian governance – characterized as "Confucian Fascism" (p. 46) – while detailing Italy's engagement through key figures like Galeazzo Ciano, appointed consul-general in Shanghai in 1930, and its efforts to shape China's modernization. The chapter also provides particularly valuable insights into the reciprocal recognition between the Holy See and the Chinese republic facilitated by Cardinal Celso Costantini, appointed by Pius XI as first apostolic delegate to China in 1922.

Chapter 3, “Sino-Italian Economic Relations in the Interwar Period”, explores the economic dimension of these bilateral relations. It outlines the challenges of China's industrial development, the role of foreign (including Italian) investment, and the establishment of the Banca Italiana per la Cina, a largely forgotten financial intermediary between the two countries active in the interwar period. It also discusses specific initiatives such as the aircraft factory in Nanchang and Italian involvement in Chinese banking, revealing complex entanglements of commerce, diplomacy, and military cooperation between the two countries.

The fourth chapter of the book, "The Liaison with Japan and the End of Sino-Italian Relations," examines the rapid deterioration of Sino-Italian relations during the late 1930s, coinciding with both the Second Sino-Japanese War and Italy's strategic alignment with Japan. Coco scrutinizes Fascist Italy's decision to prioritize its Japanese alliance over cooperation with Nationalist China, demonstrating that this geopolitical shift stemmed not from ideological convergence – given the limited ideological appeal of Fascism in prewar Japan – but from pragmatic considerations. These included: (1) a shared anti-communist and anti-Soviet positions (probably the only real ideological commonality among Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan); and (2) growing international isolation following both powers' withdrawals from the League of Nations (Japan in 1933 after the Manchurian occupation, Italy in 1936 after its Ethiopian campaign). The final rupture came when Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to form a temporary united front with Chinese Communists against Japanese aggression in 1937, effectively terminating Sino-Italian cooperation.

The final chapter, "Fascism and Nationalism in the Interwar Period," presents a persuasive analysis of ideological convergences between Italian Fascism and Chinese nationalism – one of the most complex dimensions of early twentieth-century Sino-Italian relations. Building on the Anthony James Gregor theoretical analysis of Fascism as “developmental dictatorship” and paradigmatic example of authoritarian modernization, Coco presents a compelling analysis of Sino-Italian collaboration in the 1920s-1930s collaboration as rooted in what Gregor terms "reactive and developmental nationalism". This shared orientation towards state-led modernization represented the main socio-political connection linking together Italian Fascism and Chiang’s authoritarian policies and can provide an apt theoretical tool to analyze and reinterpret the development of diplomatic relations between Fascist Italy and Republican China. (p. 197). Both regimes exemplified "developmental dictatorships" seeking to mobilize populations toward economic self-sufficiency and social transformation through authoritarian means: this common socio-economic challenge led two autocratic governments into a closer collaboration, “favoured by a congenial environment of ideological affinity” (ibid.).

However, Coco also identifies a fundamental divergence between Italian and Chinese versions of authoritarian modernity. While Chiang Kai-Shek pursued a project of autocratic modernization as a mean to reintegrate China in the international community, Mussolini envisioned Fascist modernization as a mean to reassert an aggressive foreign policy and colonial expansionism as essential to national prestige and self-sufficiency, unravelling those same international norms invoked by China to resist Japanese aggression. It was thus precisely “the colonial policy of Italian Fascism that became the most important cause of the ending of the China–Italy partnership” (p. 199). This distinction proved decisive when Italy's Ethiopian invasion in 1935 forced China to choose between condemning colonial aggression (while resisting Japan's imperialism) and maintaining its Italian partnership. As Coco aptly observes, colonial ideology was thus the “trigger” simultaneously facilitated the unlikely Italo-Japanese alliance and precipitated the collapse of Sino-Italian relations on the eve of World War II.

Tommaso Pepe, Wenzhou-Kean University