Italy’s Encounters with Modern China

Eugenio Menegon Associate professor of History at Boston UniversityHenrietta Harrison Professor of History at Harvard UniversityLaura De Giorgi Assistant professor in History of Modern and Contemporary China at Ca' Foscari University of VeniceMichele Fatica Professor at University of Naples 'L'Orientale'Guido Samarani Professor in the Department of Mediterranean and African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of VeniceEnrico Fardella Bai Ren jihua Research Fellow at Peking University, EU Science & Technology China Fellow at Beijing University, and research scholar at the Machiavelli Center for Cold War Studies, University of FlorenceRosario Centola Director, Development Cooperation Office of the Italian Embassy in BeijingGiorgio Prodi Researcher in Applied Economics at the University of Ferrara

• Contents Introduction Maurizio Marinelli and Giovanni Andornino 1: Projecting Italianità on the Chinese space: The construction of the 'aristocratic' concession in Tianjin (1901-1947) Maurizio Marinelli 2: At the dawn of modern Italo-Chinese relations: Ludovico Nocentini's experience Aglaia De Angeli 3: The Italian presence in China: Historical trends and perspectives (1902-1947) Guido Samarani 4: Rethinking the distance, reframing the exotic: Italian tales of Shanghai through the Republican and early Maoist eras Laura De Giorgi 5: The beginning and the end of the idyllic relations between Mussolini's Italy and Jiang Jieshi's China (1930-1937) Michele Fatica 6: The Normalization of Relations between Italy and the People's Republic of China Enrico Fardella 7: Strategic ambitions in times of transition: Key patterns in contemporary Italy-China relations Giovanni Andornino 8: Economic relations between Italy and China Giorgio Prodi 9: The role of the Italian Development Cooperation in Sino-Italian relations Rosario Centola 10: Italy's engagement with the People's Republic of China in the context of the EU-China strategic partnership Pietro Sferra Carini

"The explanation of China's relations with Europe often avoids the story of the national in favour of a more convenient if misleading European truth: historically, as part of colonial oppression; today, as the European Union. The great strength of this book is that it gets beyond Europe to explain and understand Italy's interactions with China in terms of Italians and their specific contributions to a far more complex history." David S. G. Goodman, Professor, and Academic Director, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, Australia"This timely volume offers a systematic, multidisciplinary assessment of relations between Italy and China in modern times." Alessandra Lavagnino, Professor, and Director, Contemporary Asia Research Centre, University of Milan, Italy"An outstanding research framework leading to an articulate assessment of Italy-China relations." Wang Yizhou, Professor, and Associate Dean, School of International Studies, Peking University, China