China doesnt decide what EU countries to get bold with, they are responding to interest and oppeness to investing and collaboration from EU countries. They wont reject much. If Germany, Portugal or idk Italy were as or more willing then China would have the same engagment as them. Same with the ME that they work with a lot vs less so. Hungary being the less anti-China EU country or better put the EU country that tries to take a more balanced stance in the emerging multipolar world only reflects bad on the rest of the EU

i think they're using hungary as their way into the EU markets? but yeah... why pick us?

They choose Hungary because Hungary chooses them. You can bet hungarian fash is just as mad that the government is friends with commies, but Hungary needs China more than China needs Hungary and since they don't give a fuck about hungarian domestic politics (as elsewhere) they are a very ideal partner.

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why they decided to go with Hungary. Western liberals hate Hungary (understandably so), and NATOids act as if Hungary and Turkey are enemies who are not part of NATO. These clowns are stuck with people they consider traitors because kicking them out would mean a more explicit alignment with the east lol. NATO is the Democratic Party of military alliances.

If Turkey and Hungary want to be rogue wildcards, China wants to enable them with forming close relations because that means more internal western conflict. It’s a political slight as much as it is an economical policy.

yeah, but he's also doing a putin, in that he keeps a carefully groomed batch of outright nazis so he can appear to be the only thing standing between them and the wheels of power. when they try to be less openly nazis to gain more votes, he throws them out and gets a new batch (jobbik -> mi hazank).

of course, it's super easy to get new groups of nazis in a country where they just grow on the sides of roads like weeds...

Xi, please be trolling!

True but it would still be funny seeing NATO cops cooperating with Chinese cops. So isolated from your so called allies that you work with your enemies.

This is a great start point for an Orbán emoji lol

orban likes china because he thinks it's a well run, rich, illiberal state that gets shit done. he wants some of that sweet chinese money. he also wants that sweet EU money.

he wants to belong to every bloc but none, so he can fish around in the confusion.

at least that's what i think he's trying to do...

but yeah, orban's opposition (standard eurolibs) threw a massive tantrum about it.

I mean, even Polish president Duda ignored order from Washington to not go to the Beijing winter olympics and made a little demonstration of going, so why not Orban.

Part of the university story was - even if it was trampled by racist libs to do le epic xinnie memes for reddit - that the place the government selected for the Fudan campus was already selected by the leadership of Budapest (libs but not overtly racist) for a specifically student-oriented housing project, so that was what the tug of war was about, in the end it seems none of these happens.