20th June: Tens of thousands rallying in Hungary against Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government for the proposed Fudan University (Shanghai) campus in Budapest. Fudan University (Shanghai) is a Chinese university. Furthermore, there is a legitimate concern that Hungary’s capital city is rapidly falling into China’s debt trap as a result of its shady construction initiatives. So far, Beijing’s lending and investment efforts have primarily resulted in a silent debt trap in the majority of countries. China’s murky foreign policy and covert goals are well-known. China’s lifetime President Xi Jinping and his power brokers, according to experts, are likely in a wild hurry to buy global goodwill and influence in many corners of the world by expanding their economic might (for example, the Belt and Road Initiative).
Budapest renames streets in protest against Chinese university read more
On April 27, this year, the Hungarian government inked a strategic contract with Fudan University to complete this project in three years. This contentious initiative has thrust Prime Minister Victor Orban’s dealings with Beijing into the public spotlight as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in 2022. Fudan University plans to construct an international campus in Budapest, where it will provide master’s programs in liberal arts, medicine, business, and engineering to 6,000 students and 500 faculty members. In addition, according to a poll conducted by the liberal Republikon Institute at the beginning of this month, 66 percent of Hungarians oppose the campus completely, while only 27% support it.
The pre-tax building expenditures of the Fudan Campus are projected to be $1.8 billion, according to Direkt36, a Hungarian investigative journalism organization. Unfortunately, this amount exceeds the whole expenditure of the Hungarian government’s education system in 2019. According to leaked documents, the Orban government plans to take out a $1.5 billion loan from a Chinese bank to cover the majority of the campus’s construction costs. In addition, the Hungarian government plans to hire a number of Chinese construction firms to finish the project by 2024. This will be the first Chinese campus in any European Union country, as well as the Shanghai-based university’s first international expansion.
Many of Orban’s fans see the whole thing as a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the country’s disgruntled opposition. But that is not the case because this agreement is symbolic of broader worries about Hungary’s present government’s openness and corruption. Only with Orban’s election to power in 2010, did Budapest’s policymakers have a new opportunity to launch its famed “Eastern Opening” to strengthen ties with both China and Russia. Orban has drawn the ire of other EU countries in recent years by edging closer to Vladimir Putin’s repressive dictatorship.
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