Hungary Could Turn Into China’s Trojan horse in Europe

Just days after this diplomatic tit-for-tat between the EU and China, the Hungarian government played host to a senior visitor from Beijing: China's defence minister. Wei Fenghe used his visit as an opportunity to condemn the EU sanctions while praising Hungary's conciliatory approach, claiming that China "has always regarded Hungary as a good brother".

It was rather strange that no official readout was given by the Hungarian side on the content of Wei's meetings with officials in Budapest. However, Chinese media reports suggested a worrying theory: Beijing might try to retaliate for Western involvement in the South China Sea conflict by meddling in the military and security affairs of Europe. This was far from the first time that members of the transatlantic alliance were left wondering about the true geopolitical alignment of Hungary.

The most obvious manifestation of China's giant footprint in Hungary is the planned new Budapest campus of Shanghai-based Fudan University, to be opened in 2024. My recent report, citing internal government documents, revealed that this 1.5-billion-euro project will have the usual Belt and Road-like conditions. It will be financed by a 1.3-billion-euro loan from China Development Bank taken out by the Hungarian state, and the construction will use labour and building materials shipped in from China. The price tag for the campus will be higher than what the government spends each year on running all of the country's state-run universities.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's so-called 'Eastern Opening' policy, set out in 2010, was originally intended to make Hungary a gateway to China and Russia in the hope of investment, loans and new markets. However, it not only opened up the gates to eastern capital, but is now...