Thousands march in Budapest against Hungary's plan to build Chinese university campus
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Budapest on Saturday to protest the Hungarian government's plans to build a satellite campus of Shanghai's Fudan University in the city.
Organisers estimated 10,000 marched, despite government restrictions on demonstrations, in an indication of what a hot-button issue the controversial project has become in the Hungarian capital.
The proposed campus, which would be Fudan's first physical presence in Europe, will cost more than US$1.5 billion to build, will employ mainly Chinese contractors in its construction, and will be funded using Chinese commercial loans, according to leaked documents reported by Direkt36, an investigative news outlet in Hungary.
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It will be built in place of a planned "student city", aimed to provide affordable housing to students in Budapest. With an election next year, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's political opponents have seized on the project's perceived excess, claiming it highlights the corruption of Orban's right-wing Fidez party, which has reigned for four terms.
Demonstrators marching towards the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Demonstrators marching towards the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE
Addressing the rally, Gergely Karacsony, Budapest's liberal mayor who is heavily favored to win September's primary to run against Orban on a unified opposition ticket, said: "We are raising our voice against the selling out of Hungary's national sovereignty, not against the Chinese state, not against the Chinese people, especially not those with whom we live peacefully in this country together. We are standing up for our own country."
Some protesters carried signs accusing Hungary's leadership of "treason", while others commemorated the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the anniversary of which was on Friday. More still poked fun at the cosy ties between Orban and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
"Instead of building dormitories they build another university exclusively for the elite, indebting generations of Hungarians," student union leader Aron Berezcki told the rally.
Polling in Hungary shows the project is unpopular with voters. A survey by Publicus Research in May showed only 20 per cent supported the Fudan campus, which would be built in the district of Ferencvaros.
Earlier this week, officials in the district renamed street signs after Chinese human rights issues. Four streets were rechristened "Free Hong Kong Road", "Uygur Martyrs' Road", "Dalai Lama Road" and "Bishop Xie Shiguang Road", referring to a persecuted Chinese Catholic bishop, in a move that made global headlines.
China's foreign ministry dismissed the stunt as "contemptible" and "shameful".
"A few Hungarian politicians are trying to hype up China-related issues in order to grab attention and obstruct China-Hungary cooperation," spokesperson Wang Wengbin told a Beijing press conference this week.
Orban has proven time and again to be China's most reliable ally in the European Union. Last week, Hungarian representatives scuppered Brussels' plans to issue a statement criticising Beijing's ongoing imposition of a sweeping national security law in Hong Kong, as well as its plans to reform the city's electoral system. This was the third such intervention in the space of two months.
"Hungary again blocked an EU-Statement on Hong Kong. Three weeks ago it was on Middle East. Common Foreign and Security Policy cannot work on the basis of a blocking policy. We need a serious debate on ways to manage dissent, including qualified majority voting," tweeted Miguel Berger, Germany's state secretary for foreign affairs.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony at Saturday's protest. Photo: Reuters alt=Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony at Saturday's protest. Photo: Reuters
But opposition figures say the campus and the outcry it has launched are now resonating with ordinary Hungarians.
"The campus will take space away from a university town planned for Hungarian students. People will now start to see very visibly what it means when Hungary is not leaning towards our traditional allies in the West, but broadly favours autocratic allies," Katalin Cseh, a member of the European Parliament representing the liberal Momentum party, told the South China Morning Post.
"Our goal is to bring back the original plans for the student quarter that was to be built in the district. The government rejected these plans and aims to build the Fudan University campus, a place and an institution exclusively for the elite," Jambor Andras, an opposition politician and protest organiser, told the Post.
"We want affordable student housing in this area, not another elite university especially if it comes at the price of sacrificing a housing project that is very much needed in Budapest," Andras said.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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