The fact that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán represents Putin's interests in the EU and NATO is becoming increasingly clear to the world. It is little spectacular, however, that Hungary should strengthen its relations with the Chinese government under Xi Jinping.
In May that year, the bridges in Budapest were decorated with red flags of the People's Republic of China, as in the 1970s and 1980s. The view of the Chinese flags can inactive be explained by the President's visit, but it is harder to find an explanation for the presence along the Xi Jinping way of Chinese "volunteers" in red caps, who made certain that the scenery was not accidentally disrupted by Tibetan, Taiwanese or another flags. erstwhile a associate of the opposition organization Momentum Márton Tompos tried to hang the EU flag on Elizabeth's bridge alongside the Hungarian and Chinese ones, he was rapidly surrounded by “volunteers”.
Since the visit to Budapest of the Chinese Minister of Public safety in February this year, it has been known that the defence agreement concluded between 2 countries Hungary can be patrolled by Chinese police. There is besides suspicion that the concept of "defensive technology transfer" between the 2 countries is to install Chinese facial designation cameras in the EU country. In the light of the above, the almost humorous fact may seem that shortly viewers of Hungarian public tv will be able to watch propaganda Chinese documentary films, which for the audience in the country of Orbána selected Xi Jinping himself.
Let us besides remind about money: in the years of transformation throughout the decades Germany was the main country investing in Hungary. erstwhile Orbán announced the beginning policy to the East, this was reflected in the investments. The state supports investors from the East with billions of forints from taxpayers' pockets. And so: in 2019, 2021 and 2022 the most capital in Hungary came from South Korean companies. In 2020, during the pandemic, which was a surprise, the most money invested came from China; China besides took first place last year in terms of investment in Hungary.
The proportions are astounding: in 2023, the Chinese capital invested in Hungary amounted to EUR 7.6 billion (mainly in the form of investments in the battery industry), the second was South Korea with EUR 1.99 billion, and the 3rd was Germany, which only invested EUR 961 million.
Hungary is to become a power in the production of batteries: alongside Korean and Japanese, many Chinese companies from the manufacture besides appeared in Hungary. There are 3 battery cells factories in construction that cooperate with China, 2 battery components factories, 1 cathode plant and 1 separation movie production, and a battery exchange plant. There will besides be a battery assembly plant.
Hungary will besides not fall behind the Chinese revolution of electrical cars: 1 of the largest companies of its kind in the world, BYD, is building its first European mill close Szeged, and in addition, there will be a smaller plant producing components for electrical cars.
It seems Viktor Orbán has put everything on this 1 card, while the battery companies are coming in with any disturbing news. In March, battery cell production in Hungary was 17% lower than the year before, although only 2 factories were in operation at the time, and there are already 3 (all 3 of South Korea, Chinese plants are inactive under construction or start-up). The reason for this is the end of global request for electrical cars, and consequently the decrease in request for their main component, i.e. batteries.
Of course, there are also Chinese projects in Hungary: the Chinese debt is renovating the Budapest-Belgrad railway line, and according to reports, the construction of a fresh railway line connecting Budapest with the Chinese airport initiative will be included in the infrastructure task One belt and 1 road. And while the US has asked its allies not to usage Huawei devices, Hungary has been moving the European Supply Centre since 2019, and Huawei devices are besides the basis for Hungarian 5G telephony.
We have late asked Budapest airport for data on direct flights on the Budapest-China route. The number of flights between Budapest and 7 Chinese metropolises (Pekin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xi’an) is astonishing. Since June of this year, 20 flights have been launched to China per week, allowing 400,000 passengers to be transported. This means that any of the 18 1000 Chinese citizens legally residing in Hungary can fly 22 times from their fresh residence to the old country.
I wonder who built this gigantic bandwidth, since at the same time you can't fly from Budapest to any of the cities in North America without a transfer.
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Csaba Lukács is simply a publicist and editor-in-chief of the paper “Magyar Hang”.
From Hungarian she translated Marianna Boros.
