{"id":147755,"date":"2021-05-03T17:57:07","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T17:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=194034"},"modified":"2021-05-03T17:57:07","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T17:57:07","slug":"new-chinese-university-in-hungary-puts-orbans-beijing-ties-in-the-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/05\/03\/new-chinese-university-in-hungary-puts-orbans-beijing-ties-in-the-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"New Chinese University In Hungary Puts Orban’s Beijing Ties In The Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"
BUDAPEST — A controversial Chinese university project has renewed concerns about Beijing’s growing influence in Hungary and pushed Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s close ties to China back into the spotlight.<\/p>\n
Hungary signed a strategic agreement with Fudan University on April 27 that would open a campus in Budapest by 2024. The deal would make it the first Chinese university in the European Union and the first foreign outpost for the prestigious Shanghai-based school, which the government says will raise higher-education standards in Hungary.<\/p>\n
But growing concern about a lack of transparency over the project, as well as revelations that the Hungarian government is planning to take on a huge, opaque Chinese loan to build the campus, has left the venture embroiled in controversy.<\/p>\n
“Until the government provides full disclosure of all the details of the project, we have nothing to negotiate about, which means that we will not give our consent to the construction of the Chinese university,” Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony told RFE\/RL.<\/p>\n
Karacsony remains one of the most vocal critics of the project, saying the planned campus places an undue financial burden on taxpayers and that the government is refusing to disclose all of its “decisions, contracts concluded or in preparation, and strategic agreements” regarding Fudan’s plans in Budapest.<\/p>\n