Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has praised Hungary as one of Beijing’s most important strategic partners and heaped praise on the country of maverick Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a European trip that analysts say is likely to widen divisions in the EU and NATO.
China and Hungary have upgraded their ties to an “all-weather strategic partnership for the new era,” Xi told carefully selected journalists in Orbán’s office on Buda Castle Hill in Budapest.
“Our bilateral relations are the best ever in our history,” Xi said. “We will do our utmost to direct our relationship and cooperation towards a golden path that will help us achieve higher goals.”
The shift from the previous “comprehensive strategic partnership” between Hungary and China puts Budapest in a special place in Beijing’s diplomatic pantheon.
Analysts said only China’s ties with Russia, officially called a “comprehensive strategic coordination partnership for a new era,” surpassed Hungary’s new designation, although Beijing also has a close relationship with North Korea, with which it has a military agreement.
Particularly striking was the use of the word “new era” – a synonym for Xi’s personal vision – the analysts said.
Yu Jie, a China expert at Chatham House, a British think tank, said the new wording was a significant upgrade to the status China accords Hungary.
“It shows that China wants to make Hungary the leading country with which it cooperates in the European Union. She also wants Hungary to act as a bridge for the further development of Chinese relations with the EU,” she said.
China’s president said the “governments, parliaments and parties” of both countries would strengthen their ties while “steadfastly supporting each other’s core interests.”
“We will deepen economic, trade and financial cooperation,” Xi said. “We will promote the Belgrade-Budapest railway and other important projects [infrastructure] Projects. We will expand cooperation in emerging economic sectors with a new quality of engagement.”
Before arriving in Hungary, the final stop of a five-day, three-country European tour, Xi praised Orbán’s government for pursuing an “independent” foreign policy and “defying” the policies of major powers.
In Serbia on Wednesday, Xi signed a joint statement with President Aleksandar Vučić on creating a “Chinese-Serbian community with a shared future,” an endorsement of the Chinese leader’s efforts to build a coalition of countries opposed to what he said as the USA sees hegemony.
In Budapest, Xi said he expects Hungary to become an ever stronger member of the EU and that China wants to focus on building regional ties in Central and Eastern Europe alongside Hungary.
Orbán, who has a combative relationship with Hungary’s partners within NATO and the EU, was equally effusive. In the 20 years since the last visit of a Chinese president to Budapest, the world has become multipolar, he said, adding: “An important pillar of this is China, which sets the direction of the global economy.”
“We have always considered China a friend,” he said.
Orbán said Hungary supported China’s peace plan for the war in Ukraine and reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks – a policy that NATO allies reject as tantamount to surrender.
“There are areas where China is the best in the world, including some where it circumnavigates the globe,” Orbán said, adding that electric vehicles, railways and information technology were areas where Hungary was interested in cooperation.
He said cooperation between Beijing and Budapest would cover the “entire spectrum of nuclear energy.” [power] Industry we haven’t worked with before.”
Officials from both countries signed 18 economic agreements on Thursday, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said.
China and Hungary would cooperate on a freight rail route around Budapest, a new high-speed rail link between the capital’s airport and the city center and the construction of an oil pipeline between Hungary and Serbia, Szijjártó said.
Serbia currently relies on a single oil pipeline that crosses Croatia for its crude oil imports.