BUDAPEST – South of Budapest, a sinuous loop of the Danube hides one of the most controversial projects of Viktor Orbán. A few steps from Kozvagohid station, walking along the tram tracks, you will discover an old abandoned industrial area that is now overrun with trees, bushes and abandoned warehouses. Nothing suggests that in that sleepy and wilderness area Hungary plans the first, gigantic Chinese university campus in Europe.
In the dreams of Orbán, east of the river symbol of Central Europe by Franz Kafka and Johann Strauss, by Claudio Magris and Joseph Roth, the Fudan university will have to be built within the next three years, capable of hosting 8 thousand students and 500 academics out of a area of 520 thousand square meters. A megalomaniac project worth 1.5 billion euros of which the lion’s share, 1.3 billion, will be financed by China. And financed means, according to the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, that “it will even leave our grandchildren in debt”.
“Get out of the rainbow or we’ll arrest you.” Fear and anger in Budapest Lgbtq +
by our correspondent Tonia Mastrobuoni
The scheme has now been run in. It is the same one that Beijing uses to put the noose around the neck of many countries involved in the “Silk Road”. Of which Hungary has always been, according to China itself, “the pillar”. It is no coincidence that Péter Krekó, director of the Political Capital Institute in Budapest, warned, in the days of the head-on clash in Brussels between Orbán and the EU Council on violations of LGBTQ + rights, of the other great Hungarian emergency: “Orbán wants to fight the battle of Brussels instead of fighting the battle of Fudan “. And the point isn’t just the campus.
According to an old Chinese proverb, “if you build a road, travelers will come”. It must be this principle that inspired the idea of rearranging one of the less frequented and more useless European railway lines, the Budapest-Belgrade. For the restoration of the 350 kilometers of tracks – a project that is part of the Silk Road – Hungary wants to invest 1.6 billion euros. And the details of the project continue to be top secret. Over the past decade Orbán has signed a series of contracts that, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), essentially translate into a “debt trap” with China. Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant thrown out of half of Europe’s networks on suspicion of espionage, announced in 2011 that it would establish its logistics headquarters in Hungary. In all, the Hungarian agreements with Beijing are worth over 5 billion euros, according to the AEI.
“On the same day that Hungary passed the anti-Lgbtq + law, the one that gives the green light to the Fudan campus also passed, much more quietly”, he tells us. Zsuzsanna Szelényi, former Fidesz parliamentarian and former colleague of Orbán. Szelényi explains that “the campus project managed to hugely regroup the opposition. All the parties took to the streets to protest against this absurd campus.” In the same days when a huge wave of indignation over the anti-LGBTQ + law was rightly spreading in Europe, a series of street demonstrations and sensational initiatives in Budapest led Orbán to apparently freeze the Chinese campus plan. The mayor of Budapest, Karácsony, even renamed the streets around the area “Street of the Uighur martyrs”, “Street of the Dalai Lama”, to give a strong signal of dissent. According to polls, 70 percent of Hungarians are against Fudan.
Among the LGBTQ kids who challenge Orbán “Hungary is not just straight white”
by our correspondent Emanuele Gamba
“Orbán – according to Szelényi – has therefore relaunched the offensive against the LGBTQ + community with the aim of breaking up the opposition that had regrouped through the anti-Chinese initiative”. Of the six political forces that want to stand united in the next elections to finally defeat the Hungarian autocrat, some like Jobbik have traditionally held a hostile stance towards the LGBTQ + community. “With the homophobic battle, Orbán also wants to mobilize that slice of the anti-European electorate that has always supported him in the fiercely hostile electoral campaigns with Brussels”. Two years ago he plastered Hungary with posters representing former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and philanthropist and former financier George Soros, both accused of wanting to “overwhelm” Europe with migrants. Three years ago, the Central European University founded by Soros in Budapest was thrown out of Hungary.
Orbán officially declared that the Chinese campus will be decided by a referendum to be organized after the elections of spring 2022. “But he will never give up, if he is re-elected”, Szelényi bets, “also because with the Chinese he earns mountains of money through his loyal as Lorinc Mészáros “. The former plumber from the same village as the premier, Felcsút, has become one of the richest and most powerful men in the country within a few years. The historian and former adviser of Orbán, József Debreczeni, has for years defined him as the puppet of the premier, the most important pawn in the circle of oligarchs that Orbán, on a Putinian model, has lined up around him. They are the pillar of his kleptocracy modeled on the Kremlin. And to strengthen ties with his Fidesz puppets, China’s money – but also generous European funds – help.
The consequences of the contracts with Beijing have already been felt in Europe too: Orbán has repeatedly blocked the EU’s attempts to condemn Chinese abuses in Hong Kong, vetoed a formal protest against the torture of lawyers detained in the Dragon prisons and has curbed any initiative against Beijing’s bullying in the South China Sea. And it is a trend destined to worsen as its financial dependence on Beijing strengthens.
.