Fresh off a meeting planned in secret with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban had a surprise meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday. A Chinese readout of the meeting asserted that discussions focused on the war in Ukraine. Before his Moscow trip, Orban met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Kiev to propose a ceasefire instead of continuing military support for Ukraine’s defense, a position Zelensky rejects. Orban has framed his travels as a “peace mission,” but Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the peace terms proposed by China and Hungary. At The New York Times, Chris Buckley and Andrew Higgins reported on the Orban-Xi meeting:
This meeting gave Mr. Xi and Mr. Orban, an outlier in the European Union on support for Ukraine and other issues, a chance to press the bloc to distance itself from Washington, with which Hungary also has strained relations. Hungary began its six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union this month, giving Mr. Orban a higher profile, though not much more influence, in European affairs. Still, Mr. Xi seemed to ask Mr. Orban to do what he could.
[…] “Xi praised Orban’s efforts to promote a political solution to the Ukraine crisis and elaborated on China’s views and proposals,” the Chinese statement said.
Similarly, Mr. Xi has promoted what China calls a 12-point peace plan that calls for an end to fighting only in broad terms. But he has maintained strong ties with Mr. Putin, and China’s defense ministry on Sunday said that Chinese troops would take part in military exercises in Belarus, a neighbor and close partner of Russia, this month. The ministry said the joint drills would focus on “counterterrorist” operations and on the rescuing of hostages. [Source]
At The Voice of America, Yang Letian captured European experts’ reactions to Orban’s trip:
Orban’s visit should be understood from the perspective of Hungary’s history, said Italian sinologist Francesco Sisci.
“Hungary is a small but proud people squeezed for centuries between Germans and Slavs, and so it always sought its unique position. It was the other side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it was rebellious to Vienna. It was part of the Soviet bloc but was the first to turn against the USSR. Now it’s part of the EU and NATO, but its president reaches out to Russia and China.”
“Hungary tries to find its own unique position,” he added, “but it’s not leaving NATO or the EU, as it didn’t split from Austria.” [Source]
Orban’s solo travels have not been received well in Europe. At South China Morning Post, Finbarr Bermingham reported on the E.U.’s anger over Orban’s maverick diplomatic outreach to Russia and China:
During his trip to Beijing, Orban posted a picture with Chinese President Xi Jinping bearing the official Hungarian presidency’s logo.
“President Xi made it clear to me today that #China will continue its efforts aimed at creating the conditions for #peace. We are not alone! Peace mission to be continued,” Orban wrote on X.
The language contrasted sharply with words used by the EU’s ambassador to China on Sunday.
“When we look across the Atlantic, we can see our allies, the United States, helping,” said Jorge Toledo at a Tsinghua University event. “When we look East and at China, we are seeing a China that is not helping.” [Source]
While Orban and Xi profess a kinship between China and Hungary, the relationship is complicated. Xi was feted during a recent trip to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, and shielded from witnessing protests staged by Tibetan demonstrators. However, Hungarians’ views of Xi and China are largely negative, according to a recent survey conducted by Pew Research before Xi’s visit to the country. 61% of Hungarians view China negatively and when asked whether they have “confidence in Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs” 67% say they have “not too much/none at all.” Young people in Hungary are more likely to view China unfavorably than their older compatriots, an outlier from other countries, including the United States, where youth are more likely to have favorable opinions on China.
Orban’s populist far-right party and the Chinese Communist Party make strange bedfellows at face value, but China has shown few qualms about embracing supporters abroad despite ideological differences. Far-right fringe figures like the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who once advocated for Russia to annex portions of China, have started Chinese social media channels in an effort to promote messages like fighting “Western hegemony.” What’s more, the controversial American social media personality Jackson Hinkle, who promotes a political program he terms “MAGA Communism,” has been embraced by Chinese propagandists. At China Media Project, Jordyn Haime reported on Hinkle’s forays into the Chinese social media world:
Hinkle is attempting to explain the meaning of “MAGA Communism” to Zhang Weiwei (張維為) of Fudan University’s China Institute, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s favorite propagandists and public intellectuals. The ideology he espouses is a chimera born of two seemingly irreconcilable belief systems: the right-wing nationalism and nativism espoused by former US President Donald Trump — represented by his campaign slogan “Make American Great Again” — and the ostensibly far-left authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party.
“What we’re trying to do as MAGA communists,” Hinkle says, “is show the American youth that yes, communism is good… China is the embodiment of it and we should respect them and also try to work with them rather than go to war with them.”
[…] Hinkle’s ideology would appear to align well with that of Chinese nationalists, but he hasn’t achieved popularity within China. Many see straight through his grift: when the false claim that Hamas had killed an Israeli sniper circulated on Chinese social media last November, state-backed The Paper traced the claim to Hinkle and called him a “spreader of false information.” “I get high blood pressure just watching Jackson Hinkle for one minute,” one Weibo user commented. “I don’t know why every site is pushing him.” [Source]
