Middle Kingdom Makes Moves In Middle Europe

LIBERALS across the world are wont to give China's attempt to forge an alternative world order quite remarkable leeway, trusting that it cannot but be better than the current world sumochamp state, the US, which has over the decades sold itself and its putative goodness down the river.

- KAJAL BASU

But is this borne out by China's geoeconomic actions-which are inseparable from its geostrategy-or is this trust a matter of mostly subliminal faith? Can China bring a level of prosperity to the world that is not cheapened by self-doubt and servitude to Sinocentrism? Unlike the US, can China do this without buffing and propping autocrats? These questions and their various answers will inform political debate through the first half of the 21st century even as the US is forced to loosen its hold on the keys to the planet's capitals.

To get some clue about China's intent and execution, let me examine Xi Jinping's newfound affection for Hungary's Viktor Orbán, a man not of Xi's mould. On May 14, Xi met with right-wing strongman Orbán to announce the formation of an "allweather comprehensive strategic partnership". The last Chinese premier to visit Hungary was Hu Jintao exactly 20 years ago, when the world was still substantially unipolar and China merely a growing power, not the behemoth it is today.

Hungary's 'Eastern Opening' strategy was announced in 2010, which, according to the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, "has since served as the referential point for emphasising cooperation with Eurasian countries outside the EU".

It is not the EU alone that China wants to rope into its sphere of influence; it is all of Europe and Eurasia. (It already has Russia eating out of its palm-with enough mastery that it has got Putin thinking of Russia as being North Asian, no longer a part of the hostile European realm.)