According to Hungarian government documents obtained by Hungarian investigative media Direkt36, the construction of the Fudan campus is $1.8 billion before taxes, exceeding the total investment in higher education throughout Hungary in 2019. The Hungarian government plans to allocate 20 percent of this amount from the central budget, while the remaining source of funding will be a $1.5 billion loan from China. According to the aforementioned document, the construction of the Fudan campus in Budapest will be carried out mainly by Chinese materials and construction teams.
“China’s westward Trojan horse”, “the bridgehead of China’s soft power into Europe”… In this land of Central and Eastern Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán walks in the head line of dancing with the dragon. After the events that displeased the EU, such as being the first to purchase China’s new crown vaccine and taking a $2 billion loan from China to build the Hungarian-Serbian railroad (part of the Belt and Road), the Budapest Fudan branch plan has not only sparked the EU’s attention again, but also the strong resistance of the city of Budapest. Mayor Gergely Karacsony, a Hungarian Eco-Green, contrasted the Fudan campus with Central European University in the United States, which was moved out under pressure from the Hungarian government, as a Chinese Communist ideological university that is academically serious but costs Hungarian taxpayers a lot of money, and a university that provides a good education without taking public funds; the former was brought in by the Hungarian government, while the latter was moved out under pressure. The former was introduced by the Hungarian government, while the latter moved out under pressure, a reflection of the Hungarian government enjoying the benefits of the European Union, while at the same time becoming a bridgehead for the Eastern powers.
According to Hungarian government documents obtained by the Hungarian investigative media Direkt36 in April, the construction of the Fudan campus will cost $1.8 billion before taxes, exceeding the combined national investment in higher education in Hungary in 2019. The Hungarian government plans to allocate 20 percent of this amount from the central budget, with the remaining source of funding being a $1.5 billion loan from China. According to the aforementioned document, the construction of the Fudan Campus in Budapest will be carried out mainly by Chinese materials and construction teams.
Krisztina Baranyi, mayor of the district where the Budapest Fudan campus is planned, said that the Fudan campus is not in the interest of the capital Budapest and not in the interest of Budapest students and that she will launch a regional referendum to prevent the birth of the Budapest Fudan campus: “There is no dialogue, they [the Hungarian government] don’t consider us in everything. Krisztina Baranyi already called for a regional referendum in a Facebook post at the end of April. So far the Hungarian government spokesperson and the relevant ministers have not spoken on the Fudan branch controversy.
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