According to Levente Horváth, Xi Jinping went through the classic Chinese cadre career, as he went from village party secretary to city and then provincial leader, and was also party secretary in Shanghai. Later, he was included in the most important leadership body of the Chinese Communist Party, and then in the innermost circle, the Political Committee, which decides on the person of the next general secretary-head of state.
It should also not be forgotten that Hsi was born into a family of high-ranking party functionaries, his father was also deputy prime minister, and he even negotiated with János Kádár when the Hungarian leader visited Beijing in 1957 to sign the Hungarian-Chinese declaration. We established diplomatic relations with China in 1949, that is exactly 75 years ago.
The Little Prince’s Grand March
Regarding Xi’s past, the expert said that one of the leadership cliques within the Communist Party is the one to which the little princes belong. They are the ones whose parents, or even their grandparents, previously held important positions in the party or in the state administration. Xi Jinping can also be classified here. The other group was the military, and he maintained good relations here as well, since the father of the current head of state also served in the army. And there is the third line, which includes those who came from the youth wing of the Chinese party, Hsi also had a friendly relationship with them.
In the past, the current party leader always nominated his successor, if you look at the line of leaders who followed Deng Xiaoping, they all stepped up behind Deng. Xi Jinping was chosen for the innermost political circle for the first time because he maintained good relations with all three of the above-mentioned groups.
Why France and Serbia?
Paris and Beijing have just established diplomatic relations 60 years ago, this is the official explanation for Xi’s visit to France. At the same time, Levente Horváth noted that since the relationship between Brussels and Beijing is bad at the EU level, the Chinese are now trying to establish a good relationship one level lower, that is, with the individual member states. At the same time, EU member states have very close relations with China at the economic and investment level.
By the way, it was not by chance that Beijing timed Xi’s trip a month before the European Parliament elections. They hope that through the exchange of ideas with the member states, the newly established leadership in Brussels will change its attitude towards China.
And in Serbia, it is now the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing, during which the Chinese embassy building in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia at the time, was found full of fire, where several people died. A Chinese cultural center has since been built on the site of the demolished building. The expert added, of course, that the economic relationship between Belgrade and Beijing is close, just think of the Belgrade-Budapest railway line under construction. The undisclosed interest of the Chinese is for Budapest to become a European logistics center.
The latest results of Chinese railway technology are also a factor in this, since in the last 15 years, around 45,000 kilometers of high-speed railway network has been built in China.
What can the Chinese president announce in Budapest?
Among the possible projects, we touched on the possible construction of the high-speed railway between Rákosrendező and Ferihegy Airport with a Chinese loan. It was about the network that avoids larger cities and relieves rail freight traffic, which would touch the Budapest-Győr-Székesfehérvár-Dunaújváros-Szolnok junctions with a possible new Danube bridge.
Earlier, it was suggested that the large Chinese car manufacturer, Great Wall Motors, might build its first European plant in Bicsérd, near Pécs. In connection with these, Levente Horváth recalled that during the preparations for the negotiations in Beijing, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade did indeed visit the Great Wall Motors factory, but Péter Szijjártó denied that a visit to Pécs would be included in the agenda of the current visit.
We know that there will be 16 announcements during the visit, but what exactly they will be about is not yet known
said the expert.
Why are Chinese police officers patrolling Budapest?
According to Levente Horváth, there is nothing surprising in this. There is a bilateral agreement that makes this possible, and Chinese policemen have also helped the staff of the Italian tourist office before, and Chinese policemen patrol in Croatia and Serbia as well.
We can also explain this by the fact that there are already seven flights between China and Hungary, so seven major Chinese cities have direct connections with us, which is why the number of Chinese tourists has also increased considerably.
During the conversation, it was even mentioned that
- Does the current visit have anything to do with the fact that Hungary will take over the presidency of the Union from July?
- Why did Hungarian-Chinese relations deteriorate for a while?
- Why is the tenure of Chinese party leaders cyclical from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping?
- How much punitive duty can China receive from the EU on dumped and imported e-cars?
- In the changing world order, China does not want a unipolar world, but thinks in terms of a multipolar system, one of which is the European Union.
- We also talked about why the Chinese were able to buy the Greek port of Piraeus recently and what are they planning to do with it?
- Will the Belgrade-Budapest railway line be ready by the end of 2025?
(Cover photo: Levente Horváth. Photo: Kata Németh / Index)
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