Viktor Orban bows to Putin and Xi in Beijing
Tom Rogan
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic present themselves as the ultimate nationalist strongmen, leaders who always put their respective nations, people, and values first. Nonsense.
In truth, Orban and Vucic’s perpetual subservience to Communist China proves the shallow fiction of this nationalist identity.
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Attending the annual Belt and Road summit in Beijing on Tuesday, these leaders showed their willingness to sacrifice national sovereignty for communist gold. Both leaders again ignored the reality that the Belt and Road Initiative is ultimately designed not just to ensure their nations’ economic dependence on China but also their political subservience. Underlining that point, Beijing’s Global Times propaganda newspaper highlighted President Xi Jinping’s push to make digitization a centerpiece of the BRI’s future activities. What the newspaper didn’t mention is that Chinese Communist Party digitization programs and aggressive unilateral espionage go hand in hand. That’s why support for the BRI is the antithesis of what we might expect any conservative nationalist to pursue.
China is grateful for its European friends. Declaring Vucic an “ironclad friend” of Beijing, Xi received Vucic’s reciprocal pledge to build closer links.
Of course, this was nothing compared to Orban. The financially corrupt Hungarian prime minister was busy telling President Vladimir Putin that he remains committed to undermining EU sanctions imposed on Russia in response to Moscow’s war on Ukraine. As Orban put it, “Hungary is doing its utmost to save bilateral relations and is interested in continuing economic cooperation as long as possible.” Still, Orban did find the time on Tuesday to promise that Budapest would “continue to be a trusted friend and partner for China in the EU.” Orban’s finance minister similarly claimed that Hungary will “reject and obstruct any unreasonable proposal that would limit or even cancel the economic cooperation between China and the European Union.”
These quotes bear note. After all, Orban loves to host CPAC events and tell American conservatives that he shares their values. But by serving as Xi’s favorite European pet, Orban proves the exact opposite is true. He uses his European Union membership in an effort to obstruct even the most mild restrictions that would prevent Western technology from falling into Beijing’s hands — technology, it should be noted, that Beijing uses to improve its anti-ship ballistic missiles to better enable its sinking of U.S. Navy warships. It is odd, then, that we continue to see prominent American conservatives such as the Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts claim that China is “evil” while simultaneously saluting China’s primary ally in Europe.