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.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’