Why China is sending its own police to Hungary
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Diego MendozaMarch 8, 2024 at 9:29 AM·3 min readLink CopiedRead full article
Semafor Signals
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Insights from the Royal United Services Institute, Central European Institute of Asian Studies, and Politico
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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 Orban's more radical foreign policy approaches compared to the EU and NATO.
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Hungary becomes Europe's hub for Chinese investment
Source: Politico
China is already Hungary's largest foreign investor, and Orban 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?
Sources: Royal United Services Institute, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Central European Institute of Asian Studies
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 Havren 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 Sebestyen 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.
Orban is courting both Trump and China, leading to potential clashes
Sources: The Guardian, Sebestyen Hompot
On a trip to the U.S. this week Orban 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 Orban 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 Orban about cozying up to Beijing," a Hungarian opposition lawmaker told the paper. Hompot said that Trump and Orban's relationship is the result of "double faced" Hungarian politics, where Orban wants to maintain close ties with any authoritarian figure regardless of wider animosities.
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Perhaps if Trump wins the election we'll have Hungarian police on our streets or even better Chinese or Russian.
Think of it as improving our relations with those countries, well sort of, maybe.
Currently, we are seeing how well the Chinese police are going over in the PNG.
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Morning...far as I am aware PNG said no to China.... PNG is more than capable of sorting it out on their own.. or if they do need assistance usually call on us..
Very strange how so many Pacific Islands that have trouble target the Chinese..they are extremely disliked as many Chinese shop owners have a habit of ripping off the locals hence when any trouble arises they burn them out...many Chinese have packed up and left..
I should have more clear, the riots in PNG lately was the possibilty of the government signing a deal with the Chinese for joint policing. Now, the Chinese are demanding that PNG protect the Chinese businesses in PNG, if this happens again you can be sure the Chinese will use it as an excuse to use their police to quell the riots, IMO.
China is making a major push with island nations in the Pacific to have police or installations on their island usually by funding projects that will leave the island nations vastly in debt to China.
And perhaps if Biden wins the election we'll have even more Chinese police on our streets or even better Iranian.....
Since Trump is meeting with Orban behind closed doors the likelihood of Russian police is probably much higher than Iranian since they are clandestine operations like the two-man deal in NYC.
The Chinese tried the same thing in Italy.
There is a big difference between clandestine and operating in agreement with the hosting government be they Hungarian, Italian, or American.
Both of the ones arrested in the US were US citizens. 30 years in prison seems about right for them.
I don’t know Putin has police to spare.
If he's short some bodies he could send most Belarus police or Chechnya police, kind of the second team to tide them over.
Mmmmkay.
I wonder if Italian police found any crude biolabs?....
I agree. Are you saying that you think an American president would sub out LE over citizens to a foreign power or merely let them police their own citizens on US soil?
Hmmmm? Born or naturalized?
Or more...
Neither, I'm saying that one situation is in conjunction with the local government and therefore legal or at least with an understanding between the local government and the Chinese. The other is simply a spy operation, not authorized by the local government an acting in direct opposition to the local government and its laws.
No idea and it doesn't matter they are US citizens.
Okay, so they were charged with treason?
I don't know, but from what they were arrested for I kind of doubt it.
At this point Russia has nothing to spare but nukes.
Hungary’s police got out of practice with imposing transnational repression so they asked for help from the experts.
Whatever could go wrong?
The list is endless.
That is my thinking also...
the chinese already have a clandestine police force here, mostly active within concentrated areas of chinese work and student visas. I first ran across them in 2017.
I'm sure that there are groups of them through the US and many other countries.
Another reason why Trump is such a huge fan of Orban. It's undoubtedly a topic of discussion this weekend at their meeting at Mar-a-Largo. Trump will want to do the same thing here, but he needs to find out how much a kickback Orban is getting from the Chinese.
BINGO
Glad I already visited Budapest