President Xi Jinping of China found another safe zone on Thursday on a continent increasingly wary of his country, meeting in Budapest with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the European Union’s perennial obstacle as a firm supporter of warm relations with both. China and Russia.
As with his previous stop in Serbia, Xi received a rapturous welcome and was spared from protesters, as his motorcade from the airport on Wednesday night took an indirect route to the Hungarian capital, avoiding Tibetan protesters.
Police banned a protest planned for Thursday in central Budapest and a large Tibetan flag that had been raised on a hill overlooking the site of a welcome reception was covered with a Chinese one.
In an article in Magyar Nemzet, controlled by Orban’s ruling party, Fidesz, Xi gushed about his “deep friendship” with Hungarian leaders and described Hungary as a reliable “travel companion” on what he called a “golden journey.” ”. that had brought relations to their “best period ever.” Hungary, he noted, was “the number one target of Chinese investment in the Central and Eastern European region.”
The Chinese leader’s arrival in Budapest sealed Orban’s long, steady transformation from a liberal anti-communist firebrand once bankrolled by Hungarian-born American financier George Soros to one of the most ardent admirers and protectors of the Chinese Communist Party leadership. in Europe.
In 2000, during his first term as prime minister, Orban met in Budapest with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, but is now a persistent opponent within the European Union of any criticism of Chinese policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and the Western Xinjiang region, home to the persecuted Uyghur minority.
Hungary angered its fellow European bloc in 2021 by blocking a statement criticizing Beijing’s crackdown on protests in Hong Kong. He has repeatedly worked to soften any condemnation of China’s human rights record, and Orban chided his fellow EU leaders for “frivolous” behavior toward a rising economic and military superpower that he sees as vital to Europe’s future prosperity.
Theresa Fallon, director of the Center for Russia, Europe Asia, a Brussels research group, said Orban had become “China’s go-to person in the EU to block or dilute anything they don’t like. He has used many political chips in Brussels to help China.”
Hungary, already a major hub for German automakers, is now seeking Chinese investment to establish itself as Europe’s leading manufacturing hub for electric vehicles, batteries and other new technologies.
BYD, the Chinese electric vehicle giant, announced in December that it would build an assembly plant in Hungary, its first production facility in Europe. Great Wall Motor, another large Chinese electric vehicle company, is studying the possibility of building an even larger factory in Hungary.
Orban was the only European Union leader to attend a meeting of world leaders in Beijing in October, including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, to celebrate China’s Belt and Road infrastructure program, the Xi’s favorite foreign policy.
Xi, in his article in Magyar Nemzet, said China wanted to work closely with Hungary on Belt and Road projects and promised to “accelerate” the construction of a high-speed train between Budapest and the Serbian capital Belgrade. The railway line, China’s flagship infrastructure project in the region, has been entangled by regulatory and other issues and moved at a snail’s pace during five years of work.
The turn toward China by Orban and his once strongly anti-communist Fidesz party began in 2011, shortly after his return to power for a second term, now lasting 14 years, as prime minister, with the announcement of a new policy direction. abroad. Known as the “Eastern Opening” that aimed to attract investments from Asia, mainly China.
“There has been a 180-degree turn in Fidesz and its voters,” said Tamas Matura, an expert on Hungarian-Chinese relations at Budapest’s Corvinus University. But unlike Serbia, where opinion polls show strong public support for China, “most people in Hungary are not big supporters,” he added.
Thanks to his party’s tight control over most of the Hungarian media, Orban has managed to silence domestic criticism of China. But he has faced a delicate balancing act with admirers in the United States, including former President Donald J. Trump, who has made attacking Beijing a central part of his domestic political message.
An annual meeting in Budapest of the Conservative Political Action Committee, a Trump-aligned American organization, has had to tiptoe around the China issue and focus instead on building what its most recent edition last month declared a “coalition of pro-peace and anti-globalist groups.” cash.”
Trump sent a video message praising Orban as “a great man” working to “save Western civilization” from “communists, Marxists and fascists.” He did not mention China, the largest communist-ruled country in the world.
Presenting China as an ally in the “anti-woke” cause, Zoltan Kiszelly of a Fidesz-funded Hungarian research group told Magyar Nemzet on Thursday that Hungary and China shared a commitment to family values, opposition to immigration and support for “peace.” ”
Barnabas Heincz contributed to this report from Budapest.