Chinese policemen to patrol in Hungary
March 8th, 2024A liberal news site accuses the government of putting Hungarian sovereignty in danger, by agreeing to receive Chinese police officers to patrol along with their Hungarian colleagues in Hungarian cities.
On 444, Márton Bede finds it suspicious that the Hungarian side didn’t publicise an agreement that was reached between Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér and the Chinese State Security Minister during the latter’s visit to Budapest in mid-February. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Hungary doesn’t warrant such an initiative, he writes, unlike the presence of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians on holiday in Croatia each summer, where Hungarian policemen patrol in seaside resorts along with their Croatian colleagues. Bede recalls recent worries in Western countries over the presence of Chinese police units who seem to exercise control over the Chinese diaspora there. He wonders why the government’s sovereignty concerns, which led to the setting up of the Sovereignty Protection Office do not extend to potential Chinese interference.