Hungary could play mediator if Trump returns to White House, think tank says
A state-backed Chinese think tank said Hungary could play a “mediating role” between China and the United States if Donald Trump returns to the White House.
A “structural” competition between Beijing and Washington was unlikely to change after the US presidential election, meaning that the Hungarian government could face pressure under another Trump administration, which might limit the scope of its cooperation with China, said Kong Yuan, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has maintained “a very close” communication with the former president since they “share a similar world view”, he said.
Orban has lent his support to his long-time ally Trump’s bid to return to the White House after meeting with the former US president for about an hour in Mar-aLago, Florida in March.
“If Trump were to become the next president of America, I hope that Hungary can play the mediating role between China and America, and even among China, America and Europe,” Kong said during an event at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs (HIIA) in Budapest on Wednesday.
The event was held hours before President Xi Jinping landed in the Hungarian capital for his first state visit to the country, which was also the last leg of his first European tour since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kong said that common ground on many issues, including the war in Ukraine, economic connectivity, and concerns over the liberal left culture in Western countries, had brought China and Hungary closer together. But he warned that the two countries still suffered from “a serious lack of mutual understanding”.
“There are few, even no serious engagements with Hungarian scholars or articles written with a Hungarian perspective,” Kong said. “Hungary needs to engage in more academic exchanges to influence Chinese elites and consequently the Chinese people.”
Ju Weiwei, vice-president of the Budapest-based China-CEE Institute established by CASS, agreed that scholars in China still had “very little knowledge” about Hungarian academics, adding that cultural cooperation could be part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Hungary was the first European country to sign a cooperation agreement with China under the belt and road strategy.
Since China and Hungary were likely to encounter “bottlenecks” as more large-scale investment moved forward, both sides should pay more attention to “small but beautiful” projects welcomed by Hungarians, Ju said.
Those could include transport, wind and solar power stations, artificial intelligence technologies, agricultural products and people-to-people exchanges.
“After more than 10 years to promote the Belt and Road Initiative, they found that the most basic thing is culture and civilisation,” he said. “That means people from different countries, cultures and religions should first understand each other well, then we can [deepen] cooperation.”
Since 2021, Beijing has put an emphasis on softer, less risky and more profitable projects.
“I think [Beijing] gradually realised that the challenge between China and Europe, and also between China and Hungary, is not actually economic,” Ju said. “The challenge is public opinion – how people feel about China, how people think about China.”
In Budapest, Xi and Orban announced an “all-weather” partnership, agreeing to expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges. The belt and road scheme, as well as cultural cooperation, were among the highlights in 18 agreements signed between the two countries.
Gergely Salat, a senior research fellow with the HIIA, said that both countries saw the other as an opportunity.
“China sees Hungary as an opportunity to keep the European Union’s gates open … the Hungarian government sees China as an opportunity to enhance its room to manoeuvre, to have leeway in global affairs and also EU affairs,” he said.
People from different countries and cultures should first understand each other well
JU WEIWEI, CHINA-CEE INSTITUTE