[5] Rampini was born in Genoa, Italy, on 25 March 1956, and was raised in Brussels due to his father's work at the European Commission.

He would also attend seminars of the French liberal sociologist Raymond Aron at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris.

[4] Rampini's activity as a journalist began in 1977 for Città futura, a weekly magazine of the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI) whose secretary at the time was Massimo D’Alema.

Since 1995 he has been working for La Repubblica, first as head of the Milanese editorial staff, then as foreign correspondent from Brussels (1997–2000), San Francisco (2000–2004), Beijing (2004–2009), and since 2009 from New York City.

In 2005, his book Il Secolo Cinese ("The Chinese Century", topped the Italian bestseller charts in non-fiction for several months and is now in its sixteenth edition.