Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is set to announce a range of new investments in Budapest as he touts Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Hungary as a model for what the EU’s relationship could look like with the world’s second-largest economy.
Xi was received by Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok yesterday as he started the final leg of his trip to Europe in five years, following stops in France and Serbia. During a meeting with Orban he is expected to announce more than a dozen deals covering rail, road and energy projects. Hungary’s cash-strapped government is also looking to lock in financing for some of the investments.
Xi is urging Europe to work with him to overcome trade tensions that threaten to derail a global economic recovery, holding up Hungary as an EU member where Beijing has managed to create a “strong, fruitful and dynamic” relationship.
Photo: AFP
“Our two countries need to lead regional cooperation and keep to the right direction of China-Europe relations,” Xi said in an op-ed published in the Hungarian ruling party’s newspaper Magyar Nemzet on Wednesday.
The comments coincide with growing tension between Beijing and Brussels, with European leaders accusing Xi’s government of flooding their markets with cheap exports that threaten jobs. Xi’s support for Russia despite its war in Ukraine has thrown the relationship further off balance.
Hungary has gone all-in on economic links with China under Orban’s leadership, attracting an estimated close to 10 billion euros (US$10.7 billion) in planned or ongoing investments over the past few years, mostly in the electric vehicle (EV) industry.
BYD Co, the Chinese EV giant, picked Hungary as the site of its first European car factory, edging out the likes of Germany and France, which had also coveted the investment. Hungary is also a hub for car battery producers, with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd building a 7.3 billion euro plant in the eastern city of Debrecen.
The meetings in Budapest would hone in on expanding China’s economic footprint, much as they did in Serbia. The costly upgrade of an aging rail network and the construction of a long-delayed connection between Budapest Airport and the capital’s downtown are among the projects under discussion.
Those might complement a multi-billion dollar rail track modernization between Belgrade and Budapest as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure project. Hungary is the only EU nation that is a part of the initiative.
Orban has frequently clashed with the US and the EU over the rule of law, as well as close ties to Russia and China, and has rejected Western pressure to reduce links with Beijing or to back a more critical approach on trade and human rights.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS