Hungary's Plan to Build First Chinese University in Europe, Prompts Security, Propaganda Fears 

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.