Photo: Róbert Hegedüs
Mariann Őry
30/08/2024 06:00
In your book Hussar Cut: The Hungarian Strategy for Connectivity, you write that Hungary must play the role of a keystone state. What does this role mean in an increasingly multipolar world order?
The starting point of my book is that we are at the moment standing on the threshold of an epoch of historical significance, or perhaps we have already crossed it. It means the end of the unipolar world order based on neoliberal ideology, which crystallised in the years or so after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has largely defined the way the world has worked ever since. A change of era always brings with it a lot of uncertainty, but also opportunity. The Greek word elpis is an excellent way of capturing this duality, because it means both hope and fear. What these two concepts have in common is uncertainty about the future.
Is there something less uncertain, though?
Yes, even with the openness of the future, one can see that the age of sovereignty has arrived. Those countries can be successful which, whatever their size, economic and military strength, have a vision of the future that is meaningful to the world, i.e. an independent vision of the future of any kind. In corporate language, you could say that they do not want to be part of a large franchise chain, but want to be independent start-ups. These are the key states that I believe will be the key players in shaping world politics in the decades ahead. And for Hungary, this role seems a natural fit.
In announcing the policy of Eastern Opening, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that "we sail under the Western flag, but the wind blows from the East in the world economy", making it clear that there is no question of closing down to the West. In the changing circumstances, what political manoeuvres are needed for the Hungarian government to successfully pursue a strategy of connectivity and not succumb to the pressure to bloc-formation?
The opening to the East - with its fine and spectacular results - is the antechamber of the connectivity strategy. There is nothing in it that most Western countries have not been doing for a long time: looking for markets in the East and cooperating with Eastern companies that want to enter Europe. We would be fools not to do so. But connectivity is much more complex than that: it includes education and infrastructure development, finding break-out sectors for Hungarian businesses, boosting tourism and putting Hungary on the global map of world competitions, fairs and other major events. From this point of view, too, it is a serious difficulty that everyone in the West is talking about bloc-formation and cutting relations, while the east wind just won't stop blowing in the world economy. We simply cannot ignore this, because any helmsman who tries to set the sails against the wind is a disgrace. In addition, Hungary, because of its special geographical and historical position, is particularly well placed to play a key role as a keystone state, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of this.
How long can this last?
It is not yet clear exactly where the Western world is heading. We have reached a crossroads, and it is not just a matter of fearing a slip of the tongue, but also of facing a difficult, unpredictable situation. At the moment, the fact that we remain open and do not choose the path of isolation, of economic sanctions, creates opportunities for us. Of course, this requires political stability, which is one of our greatest advantages at the moment. And those in the Western world who are opposed to our success are primarily interested in undermining this stability, while they are obviously secretly terribly envious of it.
Is this the reason for the attacks on Hungary because of its relations with the East?
The directed hysteria heard and seen in the Western media is no coincidence: it is part of the global political realignment. One could say that these media are the ''dubbing voices'' of the policy of bloc-formation. It's a kind of information warfare, where good students can only turn one way or the schoolmaster will hit them with a cane. And Hungary has taken the liberty of speaking up when its interests are being pushed into positions that go against them, so it is not surprising that it has become one of the favourite targets of this information warfare.
At the beginning of May, for the first time in 20 years, a Chinese head of state visited Hungary, and for the first time in five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Europe. The world press has published numerous analyses of why France, Serbia and Hungary were the three destinations. What is the Hungarian perspective?
The Chinese visit is the fruit of a sovereign Hungarian foreign policy. Just like the fact that in March, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was received in Florida by former - and possibly next - US President Donald Trump. By having an independent vision of its own and the world's situation, it stands out from the majority of European countries and is also interesting in the eyes of great powers such as China and the United States. Moreover, the geopolitical realignment is also reflected in our region: Central Europe is divided. On the one hand, there are the countries that take it for granted that they are on a collision course with Russia and are trying to convince the Western powers of this. For historical reasons, there are understandably many candidates for this role: Poland, Ukraine, Romania or the Baltic states. In contrast, another Central Europe has emerged, from the Balkans to Austria. Here, people do not define themselves in opposition to Russia, but are characterised by a sense of Central Europeanness. Hungary is the dominant state in this group.
Hungary has certainly proved to be China's most stable partner among the EU countries in the region, but is the aforementioned shift also visible from Beijing?
China needs to find a response to the phenomenon that, while eight to ten years ago the countries of the region were in a race to be China's best friends in the framework of the 16+1 cooperation, today we can mainly talk about 'plus one' cooperation. Countries fearful of Russia want security guarantees that in Europe they can only get from the United States. These countries will never be convinced by Beijing that relations with China are more valuable than that. Countries that do not have this kind of existential fear have the openness to a sovereign foreign and trade policy. They do not want to choose sides in this new type of Cold War preparation. China needs to concentrate its energies in these countries.
Why is cooperation with China important for Hungary? In which areas is it focused?
For decades, there has been a prejudice that Chinese manufactured goods are low-quality mass goods. The Prime Minister once told me that it was the same with Japanese products when he was a child, and then later with Korean products. Of course, I couldn't remember that, but I looked it up, and indeed, in Hungarian films and pop culture at the time, Made in Japan was synonymous with junk. Then, in the eighties and nineties, there was a brutal technological leap in Japan, then the same in South Korea, and now it's happening in China - only on, let's say, thirteen times the scale. The technological progress is astonishing. Our priority is to maintain and even increase the growth rate of the Hungarian economy, and we are looking for new engines to do this. In those areas where China is the best - such as high-tech infrastructure development, telecommunications, electromobility or energy storage - we need to develop cooperation so that we can participate not only in manufacturing, but also in the highest level of value creation, in research and development.
While the bloc-formation is going on, the leaders of the big European countries keep visiting Beijing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example, recently travelled to China with representatives of major German companies. Is it a double standard?
It's like a swimming competition: we're in the same pool, but we each swim in our own lane. Western European countries want to weaken the competitiveness of Central and Eastern Europeans. We have to live with that and, instead of being indignant, we simply have to be able to defend our interests. In the meantime, we agree with France and Germany that Europe's industry is advanced but also vulnerable, because we have no raw materials and only four hundred and fifty million people, while there are eight billion people in the world. Our aim is, on the one hand, to have access to raw materials as cheaply as possible and from as many sources as possible, avoiding one-sided dependence. On the other hand, we must also strive to sell our products to the other seven and a half billion people. We in Europe are also in competition with each other, but we must be able to jointly resist any external pressure that would push Europe in a direction that would be against its own interests.
The Hungarian government is clearly backing Donald Trump in the US presidential election in the autumn. Based on the Republican politician's statements and his presidential activities, what do you expect Trump to want to interfere in Hungarian foreign policy?
In general, Republican foreign policy is much easier to deal with, because it is not based on ideological missionary zeal, but rather on a common-sense representation of American interests. In the current particular situation, this means that President Trump has committed himself in the campaign to ending the war in Ukraine. And we know for sure from President Trump's first term that he is not known for starting wars, but for ending them. We also know that, like us, he rejects illegal migration, the violent spread of the woke ideology and sees the nation state as the fundamental building block of world order. In other words, our interests and values converge on many points. It is important for us to have harmonious relations with the United States, and with as many other countries as possible, because isolation weakens our sovereignty, while cooperation strengthens it.
The author is deputy editor-in-chief of Eurasia