Orban meets Xi, calls China “one of the pillars of the new world order”

China and Hungary will boost co-operation in several areas, including in the nuclear energy industry, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his visit to Budapest on 9 May.

“Kina is one of the pillars of the new world order”, Orban said at a media conference in the Hungarian capital.

Xi arrived in Budapest on the evening of May 8th, after meeting with Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, in Belgrade.

His European tour began 5 May in France, where President Emmanuel Macron and EU leaders urged him to ease China's trade restrictions and use its influence to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion of Ukraine.

Orban said bilateral trade has multiplied in the past 20 years, turning relations between Beijing and Hungary to “a strategic partnership”.

He added that Chinese investments were so small in Hungary 20 years ago, that an magnifying “x1> was needed to observe them.

Last year, however, three-quarters of all foreign investments in Hungary were Chinese, Orban underlined, adding that they defeated new jobs for tens of thousands of Hungarians.

Speaking alongside Orban in Budapest, Xi said China would deepen economic, trade, financial and investment co-operation with Hungary.

He pledged he would advance key construction projects, including a fast railway between Budapest and Belgrade, reports Radio Free Europe.

Xi called Hungary the top target of Chinese investments in Central and Eastern Europe”, in a script published for the pro-government daily Magyar Nemzet.

Xia's first visit to Europe after five years has been named part of his efforts to increase Beijing's influence on the political and economic issues of this continent.

Orban has developed close relations with China and Russia, at the same time angering Brussels by failing to join EU sanctions against Moscow, or by failing to allow Ukraine's supply of weapons.

In Belgrade, these two countries said an agreement, which was signed by Xi and Vuciq, increases the degree of co-operation between them from strategic partnership to “the construction of a community of Serbia and China with a common future in the new” era.

Like Moscow, both Beijing supports Belgrade in diplomacy, refusing to recognise Kosovo's independence, meanwhile, Belgrade supports China's claims on Taiwan.

“Taiwan is China”, Vuciq said on May 8th, citing the UN charter.

China has invested more than $6 billion in Serbia in the last decade, pouring money into copper mines and steel factories, as well as in infrastructure and highways projects. Agreements on these projects between the two governments have been criticised by some as extremely dangerous, as well as lack of transparency.