Budapest’s friendly relations with Beijing affect European and U.S. national security. As a NATO and European Union member, Hungary can veto operations by either organization. When Hungary takes the rotating presidency of the EU in July, Mr. Orban will have far greater influence in determining the bloc’s direction.
Hungary’s “partnership” with China could also affect U.S. economic competitiveness. Budapest is apparently attempting to use Chinese investment to pull ahead of the United States in electric vehicle battery production. China currently has 79 percent of the world’s lithium-ion battery production capacity, with the United States and Hungary in distant second and third place, at 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
China’s state-owned Fiberhome Telecom Tech also plans a $22 million base in Hungary for optical cable production, which could threaten secure communications wherever it is adopted. Fiberhome is a subsidiary of the Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications Company, which the United States added to its export control list in 2020.
Mr. Wang said he seeks to deepen cooperation with Hungary in “counter-terrorism, combating transnational crimes, security and law enforcement capacity building under the belt and road initiative … to make law enforcement and security cooperation a new highlight of bilateral relations.”
Beijing’s autocracy doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Orban, given his tilt in that direction. Hungary’s membership in the NATO alliance and European Union, however, makes Mr. Orban’s particularly friendly overtures toward the Chinese Communist Party unusual.
Mr. Orban is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, so he will likely not care much about Chinese exports of dual-use military materiel that show up in Russian drones downed in Ukraine. The Biden administration is at least mooting a major economic escalation over the issue by threatening to sanction some of China’s banks that facilitate trade with Russian arms manufacturers.
Gergely Gulyas, Mr. Orban’s chief of staff, said that China was “stronger than the European Union” and Hungary’s interests are to improve its economic relations with the country.
“Hungary thinks that it is not worth setting up ideological boundaries when it comes to economic relationships, and we are happy about the Chinese president’s two-day visit,” Mr. Gulyas said.
Supporting a “stronger” rather than more democratic country will hasten the spread of authoritarianism globally. Budapest will find that the closer it gets to Beijing as a junior partner, the more of a pariah state it becomes to the rest of the world. That route did not go well for Russia, Iran, North Korea, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Cuba, or Venezuela, and it will not go well for Hungary.
