Twenty-two, here are the Chinese police officers on European Union soil… This will soon be a reality in Hungary, the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior confirmed to the Telex news site on Wednesday March 6.
This would be a situation without equivalent within the EU, at a time when relations between Brussels and Beijing are far from good.
The possibility of Chinese patrols in Hungary had already been mentioned by the German daily Die Welt a few days earlier.
The title made it one of the clauses of a new Sino-Hungarian security cooperation agreement concluded in February during the meeting in Budapest between Wang Xiaohong, the Chinese Minister of Public Security, and his Hungarian counterpart.
Monitoring overseas Chinese
But apart from confirmation from the Ministry of the Interior, no official details have been given on the contours of this police cooperation.
“We do not know when, where, or why these Chinese police patrols would take place,” underlines Zsuzsanna Vegh, analyst specializing in Central European countries for the German Marshall Fund, a think tank based in Germany.
“This is another example of the lack of transparency of the Hungarian government,” adds Tamas Matura, founder of the Institute of Central European Asian Studies and specialist in relations between China and Hungary.
The presence of Chinese law enforcement on European Union soil is a sensitive subject.
Hungary would not be the first country concerned.
Between 2015 and 2019, patrols were carried out jointly by Italian and Chinese police officers in Rome, Milan, Turin and Padua.
Italy put an end to it, officially on the occasion of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the scandal of clandestine Chinese police stations in several Western countries - including Italy, France and Hungary - has contributed to making Rome very sensitive on these issues.
Like other European countries, the Italians saw the Chinese police presence above all as a weapon allowing Beijing to better monitor and control its diaspora.
Already on this occasion, Hungary had sounded a very different voice... by remaining stubbornly silent.
The Orban government had "refused to confirm the existence of two clandestine police stations in the country", notes Zsuzsanna Vegh.
No wonder, therefore, that the Chinese police officers are returning to the EU House through the Hungarian window.
Good for propaganda
In themselves, these are not a few patrols which “are going to change the security situation” for the Chinese diaspora in Hungary, assures Richard Turcsanyi, specialist in relations between China and the EU at the Institute of Central European Asian Studies in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Officially, more than 18,000 Chinese live in Hungary, almost twice as many as ten years ago.
“China has more effective means of monitoring them than police officers, whose mission undoubtedly consists of carrying out patrols mainly in the tourist districts of Budapest,” estimates Richard Turcsanyi.
For him, this announcement essentially serves as a public relations operation for both the Chinese government and Viktor Orban.
Chinese propaganda "could probably use photos of Chinese police officers in Budapest to show the extent to which Beijing is acting for the safety of its tourists abroad", underlines Richard Turcsanyi.
In this regard, the time is right for Beijing to put such cooperation in place.
Indeed, “the number of Chinese tourists visiting Hungary has tripled since 2019,” notes Tamas Matura.
For his part, Viktor Orban “can use it to reaffirm his proximity to Beijing and make Brussels and Washington understand that Hungary is a sovereign country which can develop its own diplomacy towards China, even in security matters. ", says Richard Turcsanyi.
This announcement is also part of the pro-Chinese tropism displayed by Viktor Orban for more than ten years.
“He has always said that for Hungary, the future lies in the east. His bet is that the big winner of the 21st century will be China and that we must therefore take care of relations with Beijing,” explains Jakub Jakobowski, vice-director of the Center for Oriental Studies in Warsaw, Poland.
Until now, diplomatic efforts - concentrated on economic relations - "had not benefited Hungary much", underlines Tamas Matura.
Viktor Orban and the Chinese map
But that's changing.
“There have been announcements of more than ten billion dollars of Chinese investments in Hungary,” notes Tamas Matura.
Beijing has committed to financing the establishment of a new railway line between Budapest and Belgrade (Serbia), wants to build the largest European electric car factory for the Chinese brand BYD and also launch an electric battery factory .
In addition, “there is talk that Xi Jinping will make an official visit to Hungary this year,” underlines Tamas Matura.
This would be a first since 2009… and Xi Jinping was only vice-president then.
Viktor Orban can therefore boast of "finally starting to reap the fruits of his diplomacy", notes Jakub Jakobowski.
Even if the experts interviewed by France 24 underline that debates are raging in Hungary to know whether all these major projects will really benefit the Hungarian economy or rather the Chinese companies which will be associated with them.
The probable arrival of Chinese police officers on the streets of Budapest or elsewhere in the country represents "a symptom of a healthy relationship between the two countries", notes Tamas Matura.
But a symptom which “can be worrying… especially for Hungarians”, underlines Zsuzsanna Vegh.
Indeed, another country on the Old Continent - but outside the European Union - already hosts Chinese patrols: Serbia.
This security cooperation "also resulted in the purchase of Chinese video surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition software which were installed in Belgrade. Will it be the same in Budapest?" asks Zsuzsanna Vegh.
According to her, this would then be very bad news for the protection of the private lives of Hungarians.
The strengthening of Sino-Hungarian ties also represents bad news for the rest of the European Union.
“Viktor Orban has always been very good at playing the Chinese card in his negotiations with Brussels, but always in a very pragmatic way,” underlines Jakub Jakobowski.
The Hungarian Prime Minister has regularly used his veto power to oppose European political resolutions likely to displease Beijing.
But "when it came to economic issues, Hungary has until now been careful not to offend European and especially German interests", specifies Tamas Matura.
This expert wonders if Beijing's desire to invest billions in Hungary is likely to change the situation.
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