Three years ago, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán forced Central European University to move out of Budapest, largely on the grounds that it was funded by Hungarian-born financial philanthropist George Soros, a longtime target of populist conspiracy theorists and a critic of the Hungarian leader’s advocacy of “illiberal democracy.
The Hungarian government now plans to set up the first branch of a Chinese university in the European Union, underscoring Prime Minister Orban’s determination to continue to pursue closer concerns with Beijing despite U.S. and Western concerns about China’s deepening influence in parts of Central Europe.
Hungary signed a preliminary agreement last month to allow China’s Fudan University in Shanghai to set up a branch campus in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Orbán’s government now says it plans to provide financial support for the Fudan branch. The campus is scheduled to open in 2024 with an initial enrollment of about 6,000 students. The Fudan campus will offer degrees in economics, international relations, medicine and technical sciences. Hungarian government officials say they hope the campus will eventually boost Chinese investment in Hungary.
Analysts say welcoming the Fudan branch is one of Orbán’s efforts to please China and Russia. Andras Simonyi, Hungary’s former ambassador to the United States and NATO, said Orbán “sees China and Russia as alternative options to the West.” He said in an opinion piece in The Hill in Washington last week that “the incoming Biden administration should take heed as it works to rebuild transatlantic ties.”
Hungary extended its cultural, scientific and educational agreement with China in November. A government spokesman said this was in line with the Hungarian government’s support for China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The $100 billion ambitious transcontinental trade and infrastructure project covers Eurasia, Europe and parts of the Middle East and Africa.
The plan has caused anxiety not only in the United States, but also among European Union leaders. They are concerned about Beijing’s growing political influence in Europe and about China’s use of business, investment and education as a strategic diplomatic tool.
The Hungarian government says the Fudan branch will “raise the standard” of education at Hungarian universities, teaching knowledge and skills vital to Hungary’s economic development. Fudan University recently revised its charter, replacing the promise of “freedom of thought” with a pledge to follow closely the leadership of the Communist Party. Hungarian officials have not objected to this.
File photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shakes hands with Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping during the “Belt and Road” summit in Beijing. (April 25, 2019)
Orban sees Russia, Turkey and China as useful models for political development in Hungary, whose relations with China and Russia have also grown rapidly in recent years.Eighteen months ago, the Hungarian government approved the move to Budapest of a Russian bank headed by the son of a former KGB officer who helped put down a 1956 Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule.
Both U.S. and European Union officials have expressed growing discontent with Orban’s turn eastward and his budding friendship with China and Russia.
While Orban opposes Western sanctions against Russia, which in 2014 diplomatically isolated Russia after its annexation of Crimea, Orban went the other way, welcoming Putin to Budapest and signing a controversial $12 billion loan agreement with Russia for the renovation of a Soviet-era-built nuclear power plant in the Paokesh region, 100 kilometers south of Budapest.
The contract was not subject to any competitive bidding and details were kept secret until a court ordered the government to make it public.
After Orban’s re-election in 2010, critics decried the continued degradation of democratic checks and balances during his tenure. The U.S.-based Freedom House research group deemed Hungary a “partially free” country in 2019. This is the first time in its history that Freedom House has not classified an EU member state as “free. “Freedom House has criticized the Orbán government for “developing policies that hinder the functioning of opposition organizations, journalists, universities and NGOs whose views it considers unfavorable.”
Even so, some analysts say that Orbán’s political friendship with China and Russia is not the result of a genuine ideological rapport, but rather the result of Orbán’s analysis of the balance of power in Europe. Orban wants to bet on both Eastern autocracy and Western democracy, using the game between the two camps for Hungary’s best interests.
Orban said on Friday (Jan. 15) that he was considering approving the use of the new Chinese coronavirus vaccine in Hungary on the grounds that the EU does not provide enough European-approved vaccines. In an interview with the public Sunday radio station Kossuth Radio, he said, “We can’t do faster vaccination because the Hungarian health care system can’t do mass vaccination fast enough, because we have a shortage of vaccine supply.”
He added that “the reason the vaccination rate in the EU is below 1 percent is that there are not enough vaccines here.”
Orbán’s tilt eastward has been largely ignored by the Trump administration. Outgoing President Trump sees Orban as a populist ally against immigration. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon described Orban as “Trump before Trump.”
But diplomatic sources say it is unlikely that the incoming Biden administration will be so friendly to Orban, or so generous with Orban’s warm ties to China and Russia. Biden compared Hungary under Orban and Poland under populists to Belarus during his campaign last October. He said NATO was at risk of “starting to break up” because of the lack of U.S. leadership. Victoria Nuland, Biden’s nominee for a top State Department post, expressed concern about the democratic retreat of European countries during a seminar at a research institute in Washington last month.
Orban, who could face a tough election next year, was largely rejected by the Obama administration because of what Washington saw at the time as a degradation of Hungary’s democratic oversight mechanisms under Orban’s rule. Biden was Obama’s vice president that year. Orbán went against diplomatic norms last year by publicly supporting Trump in the U.S. presidential election and making it clear that he did not like working with Democrats. He called Democrats “moral imperialists.”
After the U.S. presidential election, Orban belatedly congratulated Biden, only in a very late letter, rather than in a personal phone call.
Recent Comments