Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's claim that Chinese Communists once boiled babies and used them as fertiliser drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing on Tuesday.
"We are unhappy about this remark, which is totally groundless," said a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing.
"Statements and actions by Italian leaders should foster the stability and development of friendly relations between China and Italy," it added.
Speaking during campaigning in Naples, Berlusconi said he had been accused of repeating far too often that Communists ate babies. "Read the Black Book on Communism and you'll discover that under Mao (Zedong) the Chinese didn't eat babies. They
boiled them to fertilise the fields". Rebutting accusations that despite the collapse of the Iron Curtain he nevertheless has a fixation over a Communist threat, Berlusconi said he was not "looking backwards."
"They forget that the opposition includes three parties which proudly call themselves Communists". The opposition was slightly ahead of Berlusconi's centre-right coalition in the last published poll before this week's pre-election embargo.
Berlusconi's more moderate allies have steered clear of the premier's anti-Communist polemics but his hard-right ally, Alessandra Mussolini - granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini - promptly rushed to his rescue on Tuesday.
"Berlusconi's words were only a small part of the real story. The Chinese foreign ministry should tell the world about the Laogai - the concentration camps where an estimated four to six million opponents of the Communist regime are being detained".
"While the West remains silent, at this very moment, women, men and children are being tortured. The work carried out by these inmates goes entirely to the coffers of the dictators who churn out products destined for the market at zero cost."
