Former Hungary PM on Chinese President Xi’s visit in Budapest

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy spoke to CGTN Europe on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in Hungary.

Transcript

00:00 Peter Magesy was the Prime Minister of Hungary in the early 2000s, overseeing the early stages of trade development with China.

00:08 He spoke to our correspondent, Pablo Guterres.

00:11 History started on the Silk Road, to have the relations with China and Hungary.

00:21 And we have some traditions, good traditions. And that 75 years we made diplomatic relations with China.

00:35 So in 2002-2003 started a new era of the relations between Hungary and China,

00:45 because we recognised in Hungary that China will be one of the most important powers in the world.

00:55 And we have to create good relations, economic, cultural, diplomatic, personal relations.

01:03 And I'm very, very happy to see that not only me, but my successors follow also this politics.

01:15 We have a lot of Chinese investment in Hungary, in the very important fields,

01:22 like the informatic technology, like Huawei, the accumulator production, chemical industry, and so on, and so on.

01:36 Now critics argue that Hungary's ties with China could undermine EU unity.

01:44 How do you respond to those concerns?

01:47 Me, I think more China, this is not less Europe. This is not a contradictory relation.

02:00 So to use the good relations with China gives us better position to developing and to have more important role in EU.

02:18 So I don't see really any contradiction between the relations with two very important groups.