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Italy's BRI membership was due to renew automatically in March 2024 before it officially notified China that it was withdrawing from the initiative by 2023-end.
The Philippines forged closer ties with China and Russia under former president Rodrigo Duterte. But KJ Noh said his successor Bongbong Marcos was following in the footsteps of his dictator father.
Reaffirming his nation's commitment to continue pouring billions of dollars into the economies of developing countries as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - the "project of the century" - enters its second decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping