At what the European leader called a “peace mission,” Chinese President Xi Jinping informed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday that international powers ought to assist Russia and Ukraine in resuming direct talks.
The day of Orban’s visit to China coincides with NATO’s 75th anniversary conference, where talks are expected to center on the country’s defeats in Ukraine. It comes after the Hungarian premier’s unexpected trips to Russia and Ukraine last week.
Earlier, Orban described his surprise visit to Beijing as a “Peace Mission 3.0.”
According to Xi, the “international community should create conditions and provide assistance for the two sides to resume direct dialogue and negotiations,” as reported by the Chinese official broadcaster CCTV.
Xi reportedly said to Orban, “The dawn of a ceasefire in this conflict can appear as soon as possible only when all major powers exert positive energy rather than negative energy,” according to CCTV.
In a readout, CCTV stated that “Xi Jinping stressed that it is in the interests of all parties to cease fire and seek a political solution as soon as possible.”
The statement said, “The current focus is to cool down the situation as soon as possible by adhering to the three principles of ‘no spillover of the battlefield, no escalation of the war, and no fueling of the flames by all parties.'”
After the discussions, Orban stated on the social networking site X that China was “a key power in creating the conditions for peace” in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “I came to Beijing to meet with President Xi for this reason, as it was only two months since his official visit to Budapest,” he stated.
EU presidency
The EU’s most conciliatory leader toward Moscow, Viktor Orban, met with President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. The EU and Kyiv both criticized Orban’s visit, claiming it threatened to weaken the bloc’s position on the issue.
Putin informed Orban that if Ukraine wanted peace, it had to remove its soldiers from areas that Moscow had acquired.
The EU’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, stated that Orban’s journey to Russia was only a bilateral matter and that he “has not received any mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow.” Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the EU at the beginning of July.
Unlike his fellow EU leaders, Orban, who is close to both Xi and the Kremlin, has refused to provide weaponry to Kyiv. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia have become closer strategic allies.
Unlike the United States and other Western countries, Beijing positions itself as a neutral party in the conflict and claims it is not providing any deadly support to any side.
However, since the conflict started, commerce has exploded, providing a vital lifeline to Russia’s isolated economy. According to a picture the nationalist leader shared on X, Orban was met at the airport by Hua Chunying, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Major investment
As the last stop of a European trip that also included stops in France and Serbia, Xi traveled to Hungary in May of this year. After meeting with Orban at the time, Xi stated that Beijing gave its ties with the EU “great importance.”
The 9.6 million-person nation in Central Europe has drawn a plethora of significant Chinese projects in recent years, most of them are associated with the production of batteries and electric vehicles (EVs), despite its little size. The Hungarian administration bragged of having projects worth roughly 15 billion euros ($16 billion) in continuing funding coming from the Asian nation.
Since coming back to power in 2010, Orban has advocated for a foreign strategy known as “Eastern opening,” which aims to forge stronger economic connections with China, Russia, and other Asian nations.
The PM of Hungary was the only member of the EU to attend Xi’s centerpiece Belt and Road program conference in Beijing last October.
Source: AFP