Insights from the Royal United Services Institute, Central European Institute of Asian Studies, and Politico

The News

Chinese police will be stationed in Hungary as part of a security deal between Beijing and Budapest, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper first reported this week.

The agreement, which “deepens cooperation in areas including counter-terrorism, combating transnational crimes, security and law enforcement capacity building under the Belt and Road Initiative” is raising alarm bells that Hungary, a NATO and EU member, is undermining European security goals.

China has previously stationed police in countries including Italy and Serbia, although Italy pulled out of its agreement following uproar over the secret police stations across the world monitoring Chinese citizen dissent overseas.

China watchers and human rights groups are worried China is amping up transnational repression in Hungary as Budapest becomes more economically linked to Beijing. But the police situation could also be a more symbolic gesture of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s more radical foreign policy approaches compared to the EU and NATO.

Hungary becomes Europe’s hub for Chinese investment

China is already Hungary’s largest foreign investor, and Orbán wants more. After signing Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative — China’s global infrastructure investment project — the country has become a hub for Chinese electric vehicle and battery production: Chinese firms like CATL, Nio, Eve Energy, Huayou Cobalt, BYD, and Ningbo Zhenyu Technology have all announced plans to build factories in Hungary. But it should be “very concerning” that Hungary is trying to position itself as a “bridgehead” for China, one Hungarian economist told Politico. Beijing could ultimately “use any kind of economic vulnerability for blackmailing,” the economist added.

Is the security deal a guise for transnational repression or simply symbolic?

The increased presence of Chinese firms in Hungary means more mainland workers in Hungary, meaning the security deal’s “primary incentive” is for Beijing to “monitor and control their citizens,” China analyst Sari Arho Havrén of the Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank, told Semafor. Budapest has been “very accommodating towards Chinese demands,” she added: The Hungarian government in 2022 dismissed concerns about discovered overseas Chinese police stations in Hungary all while other EU countries launched investigations within their own borders.

But police presence in Hungary could also merely be a symbolic “diplomatic gesture” to the EU and NATO, China analyst Sebestyén Hompot of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies told Semafor. In previous patrolling agreements with Italy and Serbia, China has mostly sent police to tourist hotspots, and Hompot said that Chinese police would likely mostly help with minor things like helping translate for mainland tourists. Although the official number of police transplants is unknown, Hompot said he does not believe it will be many, and their presence will not make a “big difference” to Hungary’s larger security goals. Rather, the deal is sending a signal to the EU and NATO that Budapest is taking a “different approach” when it comes to dealing with authoritarian powers like China and Russia, he added.

Orbán is courting both Trump and China, leading to potential clashes

On a trip to the U.S. this week Orbán skipped the White House and instead visited former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee in November’s general election. EU watchers told The Guardian that Orbán is likely helping Trump craft Kremlin-friendly foreign policy should he be reelected, but the meeting between the two leaders also “raised eyebrows” about their diverging views on Beijing. “If Trump really was the China hawk he claims to be, he would be grilling Orbán about cozying up to Beijing,” a Hungarian opposition lawmaker told the paper. Hompot said that Trump and Orbán’s relationship is the result of “double faced” Hungarian politics, where Orbán wants to maintain close ties with any authoritarian figure regardless of wider animosities.