Szabad Európa: Xi Jinping to visit Budapest in early May

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit several European countries in early May. According to Szabad Európa, Xi Jinping will travel to France on 5 May, then head to Belgrade two days later before arriving in Budapest.

The paper recalls that Xi Jinping paid a four-day official visit to Hungary in October 2009, when he was still Vice President of the People's Republic of China. At the time he was received by President László Sólyom and Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, after which they signed 15 bilateral agreements.

Hungarian Prime MInister Viktor Orbán visited Beijing in December 2014, when the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest double-track railway line was announced, with which Hungary joined the One Belt, One Road initiative. Investigate Europe's article on Telex revealed that the project, which has been classified for ten years, would take 979 years to return on investment, and the 160-kilometre Hungarian section would cost HUF 750 billion, 85% of which the Hungarian state will pay for with a Chinese state loan.

Orbán last met with Xi Jinping last October at the third international forum of the Belt and Road initiative in Bijing.

The Hungarian Prime Minister was the only leader from the European Union at the meeting, with Hungarian diplomacy stressing that it was seeking to be a link between East and West.

We have sent questions to the Prime Minister's press secretary and the Foreign Ministry and will update this article as soon as they respond.