Hungary sticks to its guns on China

Hungary remains Beijing’s closest ally within NATO, maintaining continuity in its China policy even after Orbán’s ally Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Key takeaways:

On 3 September 2025, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szíjjártó marked his attendance at the 80th Beijing Victory Day parade with a Facebook post. While the event drew more attention for Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s participation, Szíjjártó was the only other senior officeholder from an EU and NATO member state present. On the sidelines, he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, with both officials underscoring the importance of close ties between Beijing and Budapest.

The alignment between US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has often been described as one of political affinity. Given that Washington frames strategic competition with Beijing as its defining geopolitical challenge, would Budapest heed US calls to “de-risk” from China? The answer appears straightforward: Budapest shows no inclination to alter course. Indeed, in May 2025, Hungarian Deputy Foreign Minister Levente Magyar told the South China Morning Post that if Trump were to request Hungary decouple from China, Budapest would “definitely refuse”—describing such a move as a clear “red line.”

High-level contacts continue

The last personal meeting between Orbán and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place during the latter’s May 2024 trip to Europe, when, in addition to Paris and Belgrade, he also visited Budapest. Since January 2025, Orbán has also welcomed several high-ranking officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In May 2025, Wang Chuanfu, the CEO of Chinese automaker BYD, visited Budapest, where he was personally received by Orbán and announced that the company would relocate its regional center, including its R&D hub, from the Netherlands to Budapest. The governor of Guangdong province, Wang Weizhong, accompanied Wang Chuanfu on his visit. During a joint press conference, Orbán declared that Chinese investments are an “indispensable engine” of Hungary’s economic growth.

Over the following months, two senior CCP Politburo officials visited Budapest and were hosted personally by Orbán. In late May 2025, Chen Wenqing, the former Minister of State Security and current secretary of the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, met Orbán after arriving from Moscow. According to investigative outlet VSquare, Chen also met with officials from Hungary’s civilian foreign intelligence office, Információs Hivatal.

In July, Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and the third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, visited Budapest, where he paid an inspection visit to a construction site of the Budapest-Belgrade railway, Beijing’s signature Belt and Road Initiative project in the country. The railway has long been a subject of controversy in government-critical media due to the secrecy surrounding the loan agreement with China’s Export-Import Bank and the connections of Hungarian contractors to Orbán’s political and business circles. Estimated to cost about €2 billion, with 85% financed by a Chinese loan from China’s Export-Import Bank, the railway is expected to be operational by early 2026. However, projections on when the investment might pay off vary wildly—from 130 years to as much as 2,400 years.

While Orbán’s government continues to present a cooperative image on the international stage towards the Trump administration, Orbán’s domestic rhetoric signals a different bet: that the United States will ultimately lose its global competition with China. Speaking at the annual party meeting in Kötcse on 7 September 2025, Orbán described the US outlook as “not very cheerful,” arguing that “China has an unassailable demographic advantage. China has a growing technological advantage, China has a growing capital advantage, China’s military disadvantage is decreasing.” He further contended that the US economy “cannot function without Chinese suppliers” and that “the Chinese are increasingly becoming creditors to the countries of the Western world.” Turning to the Asia-Pacific, Orbán voiced skepticism about the US’s staying power, suggesting that Washington’s regional allies—Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines—would soon be integrated into China’s economic sphere, while US military interventions might attempt to prevent this.

Cooperation with Beijing strengthened in strategic sectors

During his June 2025 visit to China, Hungary’s minister for National Economy, Márton Nagy, explored the prospect of additional infrastructure loans with the leadership of the China-dominated Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB). This comes on the heels of a €1 billion loan from Chinese banks in 2024 and must be understood in the context of Hungary’s frozen EU funds due to ongoing disputes over rule of law. Potential AIIB financing is being considered for a railway bypass around Budapest linked to the Budapest–Belgrade line, the expansion of border-crossing capacity along the Hungary–Serbia frontier (the EU’s external border), and the development of Hungary’s electric vehicle charging network. While in Beijing, Nagy also signed several Memoranda of Understanding with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Finance. These agreements covered cooperation in artificial intelligence and the automotive sector, including the establishment of a China–Hungary Automotive Industry Cooperation Working Group.

The Hungarian government’s growing reliance on Chinese loans for strategic infrastructure projects drew public criticism from the former US ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, in June 2024. An outspoken critic of the Orbán government throughout his tenure, Pressman was frequently targeted by government officials and pro-government media, accused of disrespecting Hungary’s sovereignty—a charge that extended to his comments on Hungary’s increasingly close relationship with China.

In line with the Trump administration’s approach to relations with Hungary, the new US chargé d’affaires in Budapest, Robert Palladino, has refrained from publicly criticizing Hungary’s democratic backsliding or its restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights. Notably, however, he has voiced concerns about the Orbán government’s close alignment with Beijing, warning of the risks posed by heavy reliance on Chinese loans in strategic sectors. While Hungarian government officials offered only muted responses, the issue drew attention in China’s state-controlled media. The Global Times accused Washington of employing “soft coercion” tactics in Hungary and insisted that US efforts to disrupt the deepening China–Hungary partnership “will not succeed.”

Pro-government media keeps “telling the China story well”

Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, leading figures in Hungary’s pro-government media and think tank ecosystem have continued to advance Beijing-friendly narratives in domestic debates on global affairs. Among them is Zoltán Kiszelly, director of the government-aligned Századvég Institute. According to Chinese state media, Kiszelly participated in a study tour and conference in China in November 2024, where he learned about China’s history and development model. Since then, Kiszelly has published a series of commentaries on US foreign policy and Hungary’s strategic orientation. In the major pro-government outlet Demokrata, he gave an interview underscoring the appeal of China’s “economic offer” compared to that of the United States. In a June 2025 opinion piece, he went further, praising Hungary’s strategy of positioning itself as “China’s European bridgehead.”

Mátyás Kohán, a foreign policy analyst at the influential pro-government outlet Mandíner, has published a series of articles recounting his trip to China in August and September 2025. According to a Facebook post, dated 17 August 2025, Kohán participated in a six-week training program for journalists organized by the China International Press Communication Center, which operates under the China Public Diplomacy Association, part of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Kohán shared several videos on his Facebook page, including one filmed from the press section of Tian’anmen Square during the 80th Anniversary Victory Day parade, which prominently featured Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as guests of honor alongside Xi. In his reporting on the trip, Kohán praised China’s development model and the leadership’s vision of global order. At the same time, mindful of the governing Fidesz party’s anti-socialist ideological stance, he stressed that China’s “state capitalist developmental system” differs fundamentally from the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe’s past.

Hungary’s pro-Beijing think tank and scholarly circles have also sustained exchanges with Chinese state institutions in recent months, reinforcing aligned narratives on global affairs. On 24 June 2025, a symposium was held in Budapest under the title “Consensus on International Human Rights: Retrospect of the Past 80 Years and Prospects of the Future.” It brought together Chinese and Hungarian stakeholders to discuss joint strategies for shaping international discourse on human rights. The event was hosted by the Eurasia Center of Hungary, led by Levente Horváth, a former Hungarian Consul in Shanghai and the chief proponent of the (ultimately unrealized) Fudan University Budapest project. Hungarian speakers included Zoltán Kiszelly, director of the government-aligned Századvég Institute, and András Bencsik, chief editor of the major pro-government outlet Demokrata. On the Chinese side, participants included Gong Tao, China’s ambassador to Budapest, and Padma Choling, president of the China Society for Human Rights Studies and former chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Speakers emphasized the importance of “pluralistic” approaches to human rights and underscored the need for strategic cooperation between China and Hungary on this issue.

Orbán’s strategy: Keeping low profile, maintaining firm ties

The Orbán government’s approach to Beijing has shown little change since Trump’s return to the White House. While Orbán has not yet held a personal meeting with Xi, regular exchanges continue at the ministerial and senior party level, including bilateral meetings between the foreign ministers and Orbán’s own discussions with high-ranking CCP officials. At the same time, Hungary’s pro-government media continues to emphasize the importance of close ties with China, frequently praising the CCP’s development model and its vision for a future global order.

Orbán is likely to avoid a personal meeting with Xi in the near term to prevent alienating his allies in Washington. Nonetheless, the current US administration should harbor no illusions: shared stances on cultural issues or immigration do not translate into Hungarian alignment with Washington’s China-containment strategy.