Hungarian Plans for First Chinese University in Europe Prompt Security, Propaganda Fears
Voice of America
LONDON - Hungary has announced plans to open a branch of a Chinese University in Budapest. Critics fear the development — the first of its kind in Europe — will be used by Beijing to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda and could pose a threat to national security.
The so-called "Student City" will be built on the site of a former wholesale market outside the nation's capital, with its centerpiece a branch of the prestigious Shanghai-based Fudan University. Hungary said it will raise the standard of higher education, offer courses to 6,000 students from Hungary, China and further afield, while bringing Chinese investment and research to the country. For China, it’s a significant milestone, said professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London. “Until relatively recently, China was importing foreign universities onto Chinese soil, having branches in China. Now, they are exporting a Chinese university branch on European soil, a member of the European Union. This is, I think, tremendously important from their perspective in how it shows that China has risen,” Tsang told VOA. Two years ago, Hungary’s famous Central European University, which is backed by Hungarian-born, U.S.-based financier George Soros, was effectively forced out of the country through changes to education law and has since relocated to Vienna.A Swiss flag is pictured in front of the Burgenstock Resort where the Summit on Peace in Ukraine will take place June 15 and 16, in Lucerne, Switzerland, May 28, 2024. FILE - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at a press conference in Beijing, May 30, 2024. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy listens to a question during a press conference after the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue summit at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, June 2, 2024.
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