Hungary Is Neither Moscow’s nor Beijing’s “Fifth Column”
Titled “Chinese Job,” left-liberal Italian daily La Repubblica publishes an online article on China’s role in the European economy. In it, Hungary is described as Beijing’s Trojan horse in Europe.
“One man’s joy is another man’s sorrow” this proverb lends itself when discussing the thriving business of any country with China. There is, after all – even if people do not like to admit it – fierce competition among the European economies. The Far Eastern economic colossus is simply indispensable for their own economic growth. This also applies to the industrialized nations, which act as moral guardians and accuse countries like Hungary of China-obedience and cynical disinterest in the face of the human rights situation in the People’s Republic.
So it is not surprising that after Germany, Italy, currently the world’s eighth-largest economy, is now also watching with “burning concern” and a wary eye the economic relations of a country that leading Italian opposition politicians have apostrophized as second-rate. Italy’s trade balance with China in 2022 was 57.5 billion euros, compared with 12 billion USD in Hungary’s case. But left-wing Partito Democratico politicians, unfortunately, did not refer to the economy, in which the small Central European country is actually in a different league.
The journalists of La Repubblica, a newspaper close to these political circles, smell crooked deals between Hungary and the Asian superpower in all possible areas. In the textile industry, which is firmly in Chinese hands, especially in central Italy, whose profits are allegedly passed on to middlemen in Hungary for the purpose of tax evasion; in logistics, an area that is obviously an open wound not only for the Netherlands, where the Athens-Skopje-Belgrade-Budapest railroad, modernized with Chinese financing, will transport goods from the Far East to the center of Europe; and in higher education, where the communism club is being wielded in view of the Fudan University that is to be built in Budapest.
The Italian contribution paints the Chinese devil on the Hungarian wall and thus fits the now familiar narrative of the “unreliable country” to a tee. For a change, it is not Russia whose fifth column or Trojan horse Hungary is supposed to be, but the People’s Republic of China.
A completely different assessment, however, comes from Hungary’s and Italy’s common neighbor Slovenia. A successful entrepreneur in the food industry attests that Hungary is the only EU member state that is beginning to resist Chinese domination of its industry. Silvo Pečjak believes that every country should strive for self-sufficiency in food. What the Trump administration has set in motion, namely moving production back to its own country, the European Union should also do.
Hungary as China’s Trojan horse or as a lone, tactical fighter for greater leeway vis-à-vis the People’s Republic – as is so often the case, reality is infinitely more complex than some journalists in the mainstream press would have us believe.
This article by Ferenc Rieger was originally published on our sister site Ungarn Heute.
Featured photo via Pexels
Artificial intelligence has reinterpreted this news for you.
The Italian daily La Repubblica has referred to Hungary as China’s Trojan horse in Europe, according to an article by Ferenc Rieger. The newspaper claims to have uncovered crooked deals between Hungary and China in several areas, including the textile industry, logistics and higher education. However, a successful entrepreneur in the food industry in Hungary says the country is beginning to resist Chinese domination of its industry, and should strive for self-sufficiency in food like many other countries are doing. The article calls for a more nuanced view of Hungary’s relationship with China, arguing that the reality is infinitely more complex than some journalists in the mainstream press would have us believe.
