"I was thinking more of a cake." A stamp in China commemorates Diliberto's 70th birthday.

Oliviero Diliberto has already appeared numerous times in these and other columns: as Minister of Justice and Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PDCI), and then, in his second and exclusively academic career, as ambassador of Roman law to China, as Dean of Law at Sapienza University, with a professorship in Wuhan that piqued the Italian press's interest, especially in the early days of the pandemic. And he must have made a name for himself, given that today he holds a decidedly unusual honor: the People's Republic celebrated its seventieth anniversary with a postage stamp.

More beautiful than similar…

«In China, by law, only Mao Zedong can be portrayed on stamps, so much so that not even the current president has ever been portrayed».

But what does it represent?

"On one side there is the ideogram for seventy years, on the other the honor I received two years ago in the Chinese Parliament, the highest that can be bestowed on a foreigner."

Stamps, honors, three days of celebrations for his 70th birthday: we're talking about the cult of personality.

"'Personality cult' makes me laugh: I was thrilled and embarrassed, as well as happy. I still am, but I'm happy to talk about it with my local newspaper."

How was the announcement? "The Minister of Posts is pleased to announce..."

«But no, they kept me in the dark until the very end.»

The surprise stamp.

“Well, I was expecting more of a cake or something.”

A stamp is dedicated to an inventor. The Corpus Iuris Civilis is fifteen hundred years old.

First of all, let's say that the stamp honors not only me, but a wonderful Italian-Chinese team that has achieved very important things in ten years. To give you an idea: at the Italian-Chinese Rectors' Forum, held in both 1924 and 1925, the Chinese Minister of Education officially stated that the model of international cooperation to be replicated is the one developed between Sapienza and Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan. We have opened eight degree programs at Sapienza in various disciplines, we have a thousand Chinese students enrolled at Sapienza, and on June 5th of this year, Rector Polimeni, whom I always thank for her support, and Rector Zhu Fangwei inaugurated our international campus, an autonomous campus in the center of Wuhan, and we have trained more than a hundred Chinese students who have earned their PhDs in Rome. A tremendous achievement, which has also been recognized in Italy. Huang Meiling, one of my Chinese students who was one of the protagonists of the project and is now a full professor, was awarded the highest Italian honor for foreign citizens, the Order of the Star of Italy, by President Mattarella, who has always been very close to us on this journey.

The diplomacy of the Digest.

«Yes, in the sense that the Chinese fell in love with Roman law and used it as the basis for their civil code, which came into force on January 1, 1921.»

A legal framework was needed for a socialism that embraces capitalism. Or at least the market.

"Capitalism doesn't: it includes private property, contracts, and inheritance. And so they had to adopt a model that included these elements."

They could choose Anglo-Saxon common law.

"But it's based on precedents, on judicial decisions, and therefore guarantees much less legal certainty. Which, however, along with the rule of law, is one of the major recent openings promoted by the Chinese government, and in particular by President Xi Jinping. A huge step forward in socialism with Chinese characteristics."

In love with Roman law, much less with civil rights.

It's a fairly classic objection, to which I respond very simply: our system is the product of a 2,500-year evolution. It began with Pericles' Athens and continued with the ancient Roman Republic, the Magna Carta, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and then the twentieth-century constitutions. Everyone has their own path. And given what's happening in the world, I would be cautious before calling the Western model superior to all others.

For Tremonti, China can surpass us in technology but not in science, which presupposes freedom.

"With all due respect to Tremonti, who knows China well, all the great recent scientific discoveries originate in China. From the first stable lunar base, which will be Chinese, to the giant leaps in artificial intelligence."

By the way: have you ever feared being replaced by AI?

"Not for a second. In the world of law, it's not enough to apply the law: you have to interpret it."

Do you follow the torments of the wide field? Do you ever want to lend a hand or offer advice?

"No one asks me for advice, and they're right not to. You see, I belong to the bygone era of political parties and capital-P politics. All that is gone. And I'm much better off in China."

Celestino Tabasso