Italy’s FM to meet Chinese counterpart in Rome next week

Rome: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio in Rome on Tuesday, the Italian foreign ministry said on Friday, amid tensions over telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies.

Italy has not joined the United States in imposing restrictions on Huawei but the company was excluded from a recent Telecom Italia tender to supply new generation 5G technology for the core network the Italian group is preparing to build in Italy and Brazil.

On July 30, Di Maio and Wang Yi held a video meeting to discuss various topics, including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic partnerships and the situation in Hong Kong, the Italian ministry said in a separate statement.

The U.S. has lobbied allies to exclude Huawei from supplying technology for the next generation of broadband networks, saying it would hand over data to the Chinese government for spying. Huawei denies it spies for China.