Chinese President Xi Jinping’s May 5-10 excursion to France, Serbia and Hungary is part of a European charm offensive aimed at securing strategic merit for China in its ongoing war with the United States for foreign order leadership. The basic purpose of this crusade is to bring potential allies together and sow distance between the “enemy ranks”, in the culture of the Chinese Communist Party’s decades-long external influence operations.
One of the highlights of the meeting was Xi’s state stop in Budapest, where I have lived since the fall of 2023. Xi’s meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban resulted in a series of new agreements that go beyond industry and investment to reach cooperation on law. law enforcement and border control, and the media. Can Beijing use its ties to the Orban regime – a common critic of European policy – to undermine European solidarity?Next, I will offer a brief investigation of Xi’s recent excursion with a focus on the Eastern European side, which I have had the opportunity to practice up close.
Why France, Serbia and Hungary? To do a review of the variety process, let’s take a look at recent revisions of China’s immigration policy. In the run-up to Xi’s European tour, the Chinese government has begun to gradually introduce, starting in December 2023, a 15-day visa. free policy for some European countries. China now unilaterally welcomes visa-free short-term visits for passport holders from 11 European countries. Countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Ireland and Hungary. even as it invoked the precept of reciprocity by refusing to reinstate a similar exemption introduced to Japanese visitors before the pandemic.
Excluded from the visa waiver are the Nordic countries, which have criticised Beijing’s pro-Russian stance since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Also missing from the list of favored countries are Japan and South Korea, the United States’ main allies in East Asia. , as well as Britain and Canada, which share high-level intelligence with the United States. This variety speaks volumes about Beijing’s diplomatic priorities.
Similarly, Xi’s European itinerary focused on EU countries seen as most likely to assert their independence from European and U. S. politics and welcome closer ties with China.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the status quo of diplomatic relations between China and France. At the May 6 state dinner hosted by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Xi welcomed President Charles de Gaulle’s resolution to cut formal ties with Taiwan and identify full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in the face of American opposition. This and other “highlights of Sino-French interactions,” Xi said, “are attributed to the spirit of independence, which should be loved and pursued. ” In the context of Macron’s calls for European “strategic autonomy,” Xi’s comments can be seen as a not-so-subtle way of selling French independence from American foreign policy.
In his talks with Macron the next day, Xi avoided any controversy and focused on intensifying the debate to find a nonviolent solution to the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Also in the economic field, he emphasized cooperation, specifically in the domain of AI (artificial intelligence) governance. Even the ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, known in the West for his advocacy of a “wolf warrior diplomacy”, has refrained from showing his fangs in recent months.
The governments of Serbia and Hungary, known for their own autocratic tendencies, are among the most pro-China countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Orban were the European leaders (not including Russian President Vladimir Putin) who attended the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Forum, organized in Beijing in October 2023.
This was Xi’s second vacation to Serbia, after an eight-year hiatus. Her recent stay in Belgrade coincides with the anniversary of the reported bombing of the Chinese embassy in this town (then capital of Yugoslavia) and the intervention of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in the Kosovo war. This can be seen as a new attack on the United States, which took responsibility for it and apologized for the incident. President Vucic, who continues to view NATO with deep distrust, rolled out the red carpet for Xi, decorating the center of Belgrade with Chinese flags and banners saluting Serbia’s “honored friend. ” To a cheering crowd, Vucic said: “We have a transparent and undeniable position regarding Chinese territorial integrity. Yes, Taiwan is China.
The high-speed rail line China is building between Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, will be the only two-hundred-kilometer, one-hour exercise line in the Balkans. China attaches great importance to the task as a flagship achievement of the Belt and Road Infrastructure Initiative, which has lost momentum as China’s economy has slowed.
The final hurdle of the trip was Budapest, where Xi received a warm welcome. Although Hungary belongs to the EU and NATO, President Orban is known for clashing with other European leaders over policies ranging from immigration to aid to Ukraine. This makes Hungary a prime target for influence operations aimed at undermining European solidarity.
Xi’s initiative in May proved successful, resulting in 18 new bilateral agreements. At the local level, media attention has focused on projects supported by interests close to the government, adding the progression of nuclear power and the structure of a high-speed rail connection between the airport and the centre of Belgrade. But the expansion of cooperation in non-economic sectors deserves equal attention. The two governments concluded five cultural cooperation agreements involving the China Film Administration, Xinhua News Agency, China Media Group and People’s Daily. These agreements can easily be used through the CCP to spread propaganda and influence Hungarian public opinion in favor of China.
The expansion of bilateral cooperation in the areas of law enforcement, surveillance and security is also a matter of concern. Previous agreements paved the way for the use of Chinese-made surveillance cameras and even Chinese police officers on the streets of Hungary. In the circular agreement, China will cooperate on the structure of a checkpoint on the border with Serbia.
Beijing is seeking similar agreements in other parts of the world, particularly with emerging and newly industrialized countries. But the partnership with Budapest is worrying because Hungary is a member of the EU and NATO. The fear is that China’s involvement in law enforcement in Belgrade, media efforts and surveillance may contribute to the erosion of liberal values in the country and the region.
During Xi’s visit, some of the roughly 30,000 Chinese citizens living in Hungary gathered in regiments in the Buda Castle district, where Xi resided, to welcome their leader. The volunteers wearing red capes and flags attracted media attention for their demonstration. however, some of the participants provoked a fight when they forcibly got rid of Tibetan flags flying among Hungarian citizens in protest of Beijing’s policies.
Among Xi’s entourage, which had numerous shipments, were representatives of Chinese industry. Hungary has a magnet for direct investment through Chinese companies, especially in the electric vehicle sector. CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. ), the world’s largest maker of EV batteries, and BYD Auto, which lately are competing with Tesla for the no-nonsense EV maker name, are construction factories in Hungary, with more expected to follow. The EU has imposed new price lists on Chinese-made electric cars on the grounds that government subsidies give Chinese automakers unfair merit over European ones. The Chinese hope to avoid those taxes by moving the production of cars destined for Europe to Hungary.
According to the Mercato Institute for China Studies, a think tank founded in Germany, in 2023, 44% of Chinese FDI in Europe was concentrated in Hungary, a country with a population of around nine million and an economy of less than one twentieth of its size. . from Germany. At the same time, Chinese FDI in the EU has fallen to its lowest point in 10 years (€6. 8 billion in 2023), a trend attributable to China’s economic slowdown and a less welcoming environment among major European economies. In this context, the rush to invest in Hungary is even more surprising. Orban’s internal critics say the deals the regime has made with China are more geared toward enriching Orban’s inner circle than the nation’s economic well-being.
In 2012, Beijing introduced the 16-1 initiative (16 Central and Eastern European countries plus China) as a framework for cooperation, and for the next ten years China has relied on this framework for its ties with Central and Eastern Europe. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic states, led through Lithuania, withdrew due to deepening ties between Beijing and Moscow, and other members reduced their participation.
Meanwhile, the EU has begun to prioritise economic security over industrial relations with China, in reaction to the latter’s expansionist stance and its belligerent “wolf warrior diplomacy”, as well as the growing animosity between Beijing and Washington. The idyll that had blossomed with the European debt crisis was over.
Aware of these changes, China has moved from a multilateral approach to individual engagement with receptive countries, of which Hungary is an excellent example. Beijing no doubt hopes to be able to use the Orban government to influence EU policy, just as it has used the pro-China ones. The Cambodian regime will block statements through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that criticize China’s habit in the South China Sea.
It remains to be seen how far Beijing can push this divide-and-rule strategy, but the scenario is worth monitoring. Despite its recent slowdown, China remains the world’s largest economy and many of its companies, particularly those in the electric vehicle sector, are expanding and eager to invest abroad. France, Italy and Spain are competing to attract investment in the electric vehicle sector. Germany continues to see China as a trading partner. Chancellor Olaf Scholz made his second stop in Beijing last April, shortly before Xi’s European tour. Representatives of the German car industry, which is making significant investments in China, have criticized the EU investigation into subsidies for electric vehicles, fearing a backlash from the Chinese government. China’s economic clout – which has been the hard force behind its “charm offensive” – remains a difficult asset for many European stakeholders.
Beijing has already convinced Budapest and Belgrade to side with China in EU deliberations on the Taiwan factor and China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea, issues that Xi sees as important to China’s “core interests. “China will undoubtedly exert similar pressure on other European governments in the future. The EU is geographically remote from East Asia and has its hands in the dough with the war in Ukraine and the clashes in the Middle East, a region with which it has old and complex ties. Within the EU, the immediate gains of far-right parties in France and – obviously visible in the effects of the European elections in June – pose a risk to political unity and stability.
Amid such turmoil, President Macron finds himself in a precarious position, and Orban’s warring political parties are also persecuting him. But Beijing will most likely pursue the same economic policy, regardless of the ruling party’s ideology. Europe, for its part, will continue to hesitate, however subtly, to weigh the security dangers of a rapprochement with China against the economic benefits.
Japan, for its part, will have to convince the EU to continue paying attention to the East Asian security environment, which is of great importance to that country. To counter China’s influence operations, we will have to strengthen our ties with Europe using accurate and detailed data (adding research into each country’s internal affairs) and intelligent communication. We are pushing tirelessly to ensure that Europeans share our concerns about China’s behavior and intentions in East Asia. Needless to say, all this assumes that we in Japan fully perceive Beijing’s modus operandi, even as we leave the door open for a constructive discussion with our tough neighbor.
(Originally in Japanese. Header photo: French President Emmanuel Macron receives Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 6, 2024. © AFP/Jiji. )