Mise Undersecretary Michele Geraci at Bloomberg said, as reported in Il Foglio, that "The memorandum with China speaks of telecommunications, not Huawei". The undersecretary was explicit: "5G has nothing to do with this MoU. Telecommunications are across the board, telecommunications is not the same as 5G, 5G is a subset on which we will be very careful, it also means collaborations on satellites. For example, those on which Italy is far ahead and collaborates with China are those for the detection of earthquakes through satellite telecommunications..
In this regard, adds Geraci, we have our talented astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti who collaborates, through ASI with the Chinese space agency. Italy is also among the European countries the only country that supplies an important component of the European space station.
The message of the number two of the Mise is clear. When it comes to "telecommunications" it also means collaboration on satellites with China. A sore point with Europe. One of the most ambitious programs of the European Union concerns satellites: the "Galileo" which is a project started in 2003. Each EU country has financed the ambitious satellite system (whose value is about 10 billion euros), which will be used for a new alternative localization system to the American one (GPS).
Galileo will soon be launched into orbit and, according to insiders, will be able to guarantee advantages especially from the point of view of safety. As “Il Foglio” writes, Italy with the MoU signed with China could put partner countries in difficulty as it would put the European satellite project at risk. China has its own satellite positioning system called BeiDou, a strategic project in which Beijing has also invested heavily. Last Sunday, at Villa Madama, the Italian Space Agency signed an agreement with the Chinese one on cooperation relating to the "China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite 02" mission, which is what Geraci referred to in the field of earthquake studies, a noble and useful purpose, but satellite technology is always the same, and the sharing of information and data can only pass from one agency to another within an allied country. Sharing strategic technologies with China will certainly not give Americans a good night's sleep.