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Orbán-China cooperation
The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, has welcomed China‘s Xi Jinping in Budapest this month and several agreements have supposedly resulted from the visit. A security pact between Hungary and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is reported to allow Chinese law enforcement officers to conduct patrols within Hungary, a European Union member state. Szabolcs Panyi, a Central European investigative journalist looked at the implications in his newsletter in VSquare. This is an English-language regional collaborative platform for Central European journalists.
Chinese dissidents living in the EU fear that the PRC may abuse this agreement: Chinese policemen “can even go to European countries to perform secret missions and arbitrarily arrest dissidents”, as Panyi reported in a previous Goulash newsletter. This must be a worrying thought also for Hong Kong refugees in the UK.
Big brother is watching you
As if the prospect of Chinese police on the streets of an EU member state was not dangerous enough, Panyi reports that a provision in the pact permits China to deploy surveillance cameras equipped with advanced AI capabilities, such as facial recognition software, on Hungarian territory.
The Orbán government is known to already maintain a significant surveillance infrastructure. This consists of CCTV systems and, besides some Pegasus spyware, according to Panyi, they may have also acquired Israeli-developed facial recognition technology. Are these measures in keeping with civil liberties and human rights laws which EU and Council of Europe members have signed up to?
We have reported on Orbán’s illiberal democracy and departure from EU values. This new pact with China, allowing the PRC to establish their own surveillance apparatus within Hungary must surely deepen the concerns of the EU and all democratic countries.
Supposedly safeguarding Chinese investments
The justification for the Chinese involvement in Hungarian security is the supposed monitoring of Chinese investments, institutions, and personnel. Panyi comments on further implications of this pact: “… the potential involvement of Chinese technology firms, some of which have ties to the People’s Liberation Army or Chinese intelligence and are subject to Western sanctions, could complicate Hungary’s relations with its NATO allies.“
The Hungarian police claim that Chinese policemen will not be authorised to investigate or take any kind of action on their own. Panyi‘s questions to the Hungarian government and the police on surveillance cameras and AI technology remain unanswered. Since human rights and pro-democracy think tanks and NGOs have either been closed down, evicted or their funding has been cut, and most of the media are under government control, the Hungarian population might not be aware of the erosion of their European rights and protections.
Seeing how the newly established opposition party, Tisza, comments on Orbán’s arrangements with China would be interesting. Looking at Tisza’s pro EU stance, Péter Magyar, the party’s leader might include this China pact in his speeches about Orbán’s corruption as he travels across Hungary. Maybe some more protests in Budapest would ensue to show how Hungarians feel about being policed by China.
Serbia and China
Before travelling to Budapest, the Chinese leader arrived in Belgrade on the second leg of his European tour. He was greeted with enthusiasm in Serbia, which is often regarded as one of China’s staunchest allies in Europe.
“I told him that, as the leader of a great power, he will be met with respect all over the world, but the reverence and love he encounters in our Serbia will not be found anywhere else”, President Aleksandar Vučić said in his welcoming speech.
Chinese investment initiatives in Serbia have surged, such as infrastructure projects like highways, the Smederevo Ironworks and the Zijin Mining Basin.
Politico reports: “However, this expansion has come at a cost to Serbia, which has amassed a debt burden of around €3.7 billion, due to the common practice of Chinese investments being bundled into loan schemes.”
Serbia is the only European country to buy the Chinese HQ-22 ‘Hong Qi’ or Red Flag air defence systems. This was controversial in the EU due to the difficulty of integrating them into its European weapons systems. Owing large debts to China and its friendly stance on Russia will not improve Serbia’s chances as an EU candidate country.
Both Russia and China are seemingly undermining European unity at a time when global issues need a strong Continent. In many people’s view, Brexit was just another tool to weaken Europe. Maybe the UK rejoining the EU is even more important and urgent to both the UK and Europe than Eurosceptics think.
China spying in Germany
Hungary and Serbia are not the only countries where China seems to get involved with politics and the right wing. Politico reports that a German far-right MEP and his aide are being investigated for suspected Chinese espionage.
“An investigating judge of Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ordered the search of the offices of MEP Maximilian Krah, the top candidate for next month’s EU election from the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) and his aide Jian G, who is suspected of “secret service agent activity”, according to German public prosecutors. In late April, Jian G was arrested and accused of repeatedly passing on information about “negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament” to Chinese intelligence agents. Krah himself has denied any wrongdoing and has not yet been charged with any crimes. However, a German public prosecutor in the city of Dresden has initiated preliminary investigations into Krah on suspicion of receiving payments from Russia and China “for his work as an MEP”.
It seems that the AfD has gone too far with their China and Russia policies even for other right-wing European groups. Deutsche Welle (DW) reports that the French far-right has now expelled the AfD from their shared political group in the European Parliament.
What impact this will have on the upcoming European elections is yet to be analysed by experts.
China and the Visegrad4
Orbán’s stance on China and Russia causes deep-seated divisions among Hungary’s official allies in the Visegrad4 Group. Slovakia’s right-wing aligns with Hungary’s friendly stance towards both China and Russia. We don’t know yet if the recent shooting has any impact on the Slovakian political landscape.
Poland, even before their change of government, has adopted a more complex position. They oppose Putin’s Russia in line with the EU position while maintaining a softer approach towards China. The Czech Republic takes a tough stance towards both China and Russia.
Panyi even reports scepticism by a Czech official about the efficacy of the whole V4 platform: “At this moment, it’s not possible to have a V4 common stance on China. I thought we already learned our lesson with the pandemic and how our supply chains (too dependent on China) were disrupted”, adding that “I don’t know what needs to happen” for countries to realise the dangers of relying too heavily on China. The official also said that Xi Jinping’s recent diplomatic visits to Paris, Belgrade, and Budapest were proof China is using the “divide and conquer” tactic. According to the official, it isn’t only Hungary and Slovakia that are neglecting national security risks associated with Beijing, noting that “France doesn’t want to discuss China in NATO”.
Undue interference in Europe
In general, there seems to be a broad reluctance among European nations to confront the challenges posed by China’s growing influence in Europe and around the globe. With the upcoming EU elections, when the right-wing is expected to reach 25% according to some polls, their alliance with China increases the danger of undue interference in European politics. Maybe it is time for the EU to clamp down harder on rogue states whose vows when joining the Union seem to have been forgotten. Married couples sometimes have ceremonies to repeat their vows. What could the EU do to stop members from straying?
