4. Italy in China: 1861–1919

This chapter will examine the first commercial solutions between Italy and China and the influence of Italian politics. The analysed period is particularly significant for the history of Italy because it is rich in important events and phenomena; it is also called the Belle Époque. This term indicates the European historical, socio-cultural and artistic period that goes from the last twenty years of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the First World War. Moreover, from an economic point of view the period between 1896 and 1907 is called the Giolittian period. According to Gerschenkron’s estimates (1962; Il Problema storico dell’arretratezza economica. Bellknap, Cambridge, Mass, 1965), in this period the average rate of growth for Italian industrial production went from 0.3 to 6.7% and then fell, between 1908 and 1913 to 2.4%. According to the Fenoaltea calculations (La crescita industriale delle regioni d’Italia dall’Unità alla grande guerra: una prima stima per gli anni censuari. Bank of Italy, Rome, 2001), the annual growth rates, again for industrial production and for the same periods, were, respectively, 7.6 and 2.3%. Istat calculated figures for 0.5 and 1.5%. Leaving aside a discussion of the reasons for the various degrees of reliability of these indices, as well as those of the contrasting historiographical uses that have been made of them in order to theorize or not on the existence of a take-off in the process of industrialization of the country, it is a known fact that the productive expansion in the Giolittian age (about 1901–1914) had no precedent with respect to that of the post-unification decades, despite the setback of 1907. Notwithstanding the persistence of protectionist duties, whose incidence was however attenuated by the increase in prices, progress in transport, the new lines of exchange, the reduction of freight rates and the revision of trade treaties all supported the expansion phase, as did the increase in international trade. It was in this climate that Italy, in order not to be outdone by the other capitalist powers, initiated its first commercial treaties with China.