The following is a recent verbatim quote from the Hungarian Prime Minister: “Globalists can go to hell!”.
That's what he said between applause Viktor Orbán in one of the latest editions of the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC), the great summit of conservative political thought in the United States and, therefore, Western. Orbán said in that meeting – specifically at the CPAC held in Texas in 2022 – that we had to fight the “internal battle” that keeps the future of the western civilization. “Victory will never come by choosing the path of least resistance,” said Orbán, a politician known for his usual positions contrary to or resistant to the consensus that exists in Brussels.
Orbán has been standing out for some time now against what the politicians of his rank call “globalist elites”, but only when those elites are Westerners. In fact, the Hungarian leader is far more than docile, for example, when it comes to dealing with China's global influence projects.
[China está penetrando en la UE a través de Hungría]
What's more, it recently came to light that the close relationship between Orbán's country and that of the president Xi Jinping It already includes an agreement, details of which are known only in short order, that will allow Chinese police to patrol on Hungarian soil.
This follows from the fact that, in March, the Minister for Public Security of the Chinese regime, Wang Xiaohong, and the Minister of the Interior of Hungary, Sándor Pinter, signed a cooperation agreement that has not been revealed. Of what was agreed, only some elements are known that have emerged via a statement issued by the administrations of Hungary and the Asian dictatorship. Under the agreement, “the police of both countries will be able patrol togetherwhich will contribute to improving communication between citizens and authorities of the two countries and to improving internal security and public order,” Pinter would explain in statements reported by the Hungarian news portal Telex.
Those words served to confirm and cement the Hungarian position regarding the presence of Chinese police working in Ukraine. Already in 2022, the revelations made by the NGO Safeguard Defenders showed that China had up to 21 pseudo-police stations in several European countries, including Hungary. Then, the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior denied the existence of these 'police stations', seen at the time as part of the totalitarian repressive regime that the Chinese Communist Party maintains outside its borders.
A serious concern” in Europe
In Germany, where the political situation of the small Eastern European country is also closely followed, they consider that what was agreed between Hungary and China contributes to a “control” of the Xi Jinping regime even greater on Chinese citizens abroad. That is at least the term the newspaper has used Die Welt to refer to an agreement that said newspaper considers similar to the one that China already has with Serbia.
In that Balkan republic “Chinese police officers already had official permission to patrol the cities and monitor the areas most frequented by Chinese tourists,” reads Die Welt. In Hungary itself there are those who have raised their voices to explain what those responsible for the Hungarian and Chinese governments have agreed upon. It constitutes a “serious security concerns for Hungary and the European Union”, in addition to putting “Chinese dissidents living” on Hungarian soil in danger, according to Tompos Márton, deputy of the Hungarian centrist party Momentum Movement.
That party is part of Renew Europe, the parliamentary group of the liberals in the European Parliament. From there, a few days ago the European Commission was asked to study whether Chinese police activity “abroad complies with EU standards on the rule of law, security and protection of minorities.” “Given that the Chinese Communist Party has a history of surveillance of its citizens abroad“, they point out in Renew Europe, there is fear that “the authorities in Beijing will take advantage of the opportunity to monitor their diaspora residing in Europe in an attempt to silence dissidents“.
[El régimen de Orbán exhibe grietas internas tras 14 años de poder absoluto en Hungría]
These concerns have come to be debated in the European Parliament without Orbán having doubted for a moment the solidity of his particular and profitable relationship with China. We must not forget that, despite his traditional criticism of globalism, Orbán seems well installed on the bandwagon of global action when it is led by China.
Not in vain, the leader of the Hungarian Government was the only representative of the European Union who participated last October in Beijing at the summit of the Belt and Road Initiativea global Chinese investment project with which Xi Jinping surely aspires to increase the influence of his regime internationally.
“We are convinced that this initiative will change the world, change the global economy and transform the world into a place that will serve the well-being of more people than before,” Orbán said in Beijing, according to statements reported by the Brussels newspaper EUobserver.
An Orbán who welcomes Chinese global projects
Thanks to Chinese initiatives like this, Hungary has become the spearhead of Xi Jinping's influence in Europe.
China is already the largest foreign investor in Hungary. The list of industrial and infrastructure projects in Hungary that have the approval of the Chinese Communist Party is relevant, large and valued in billions of euros.
It includes the construction in Hungary of lines of high-speed trainto automobile battery and electric car factories, to solar panel plants and even a university campus in Shanghai.
[Hay que pararle ya los pies a Viktor Orbán]
In view of how much Hungary's “political opening to the east” represents, as Orbán calls it, the agreement that will allow Chinese police officers to patrol on Hungarian soil only strengthens Budapest's good relationship with Beijing's global projects. It seems that the Hungarian leader does not care that China promotes what was denounced in the European Parliament this month as “totalitarian policies” inside and outside its borders, according to the terms used last week in the European Parliament by the veteran German environmental politician Reinhardt Bütikofer.
“China is increasingly bolder and more aggressive in promoting its totalitarian policies“, not only internally, but also across their borders,” according to Bütikofer. And “the Member States are not always united enough to respond with a single voice and carry out what they say,” added this German politician.
Regarding denying China's influence in Europe, it seems that Orbán cannot be counted on in view of his affiliations with Mandarin-speaking globalism. Hence there are those who reproach the Hungarian prime minister for having become the “useful fool from China”according to the expression of the British weekly The Spectator.
