“Hungary’s willingness to enter security arrangements with Xi Jinping and do the bidding of Vladimir Putin while, simultaneously, maintain membership in NATO and the EU is deeply troubling and presents an existential crisis for those alliances,” writes Elaine Dezenski, senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in the U.S.
The €3.8 billion Serbia-Hungary railway project, financed by Chinese loans under the BRI, is expected to be completed by 2025, but some estimates suggest that it will take a further 979 years — or nearly a millennium — for Hungary to break even on the project.
Hungary’s BRI issues are not unique. As described in a new report on the BRI, “Tightening the Belt or End of the Road”, many BRI projects around the world face serious challenges, from hydroelectric dams with thousands of cracks in Ecuador, to promised infrastructure that was never built in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to massive debt distress in Zambia.
“Despite the problems for host countries and the large portfolio of failing loans for China, Beijing has still been successful at building influence across authoritarian-leaning regimes, who are eager to follow the Chinese model of single-party state control and high-tech domestic repression,” Dezenski says…
While Western states have awoken to the risk of overreliance on Chinese supply lines, Hungarian officials are taking the opposite approach, going so far as to call de-risking suicidal.
This position, however, doesn’t impact Hungary alone. The entire EU market is open to Chinese manipulations through the Hungarian economy, such as dumping of cheap goods to prop up the failing Chinese economy or undermining domestic European industries with subsidised competitors.
As German chemical giant BASF seeks to disengage from China’s Xinjiang region, leaked documents indicate that China is planning to build a chemical hub in Hungary.
I don’t ignore China’s act. In fact I acknowledge both. It’s normal that some powerful countries would want to exert control upon others. The question is their methodologies and how long can they sustain the approval.
Yeah, none of the SEA countries are happy with this. But they’re dependent on the relationship and they don’t have the capacity to resist. The best they can do is, “We’ll solve this diplomatically”. I think what’s currently happen with Philippines
withwill set the precedence for the future as they have gone beyond just claiming the territory.I don’t know much about this. need to read more on this.
BTW, in no such way that I say that I supported what China does. But I try to convey the sentiment towards them is not just one sided. You’re knowledgeable enough that you understand this, but some people are in denial that they think that the whole world is united to go against the oppressive China when in reality China has been slowly gaining support in non-traditional places such as in African continent for example (let’s not touch about it just to keep it short). If the best line of defence is by shouting ‘China is a fascist country’, like what sub-OP has done, that’s
nownot going to work for obvious reason.And I think I need to correct my words earlier - For me, unlike the US, the Europe are still friendly in the way the treat their relationship with China. However, we can see that at one point, one has to take side, or least becoming neutral. These coming years we’ll be seeing more and more issues being brought up to set the tone for the future.