Foreign Ministers of Hungary and China meet in New York

China deserves to be thanked for keeping the issue of peace alive despite difficulties, which also makes it important to maintain cooperation with it, the foreign minister said on Tuesday after talks with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

The ministry cited Péter Szijjártó saying that Hungary had benefited greatly from cooperation with China in recent years.

Szijjártó said that despite the “new winds from Washington”, the Far Eastern country had done much in recent years to keep the issue of peace alive, for which it deserved gratitude.

He said Hungary had benefited greatly from cooperation with China in recent years. “And we would have lost much had we not cooperated with China. If we had yielded to the liberal mainstream whose governors can also be found in Hungary and who continually pressed for cutting cooperation with China, cutting European-China relations, saying that cooperation with China was not correct,” he said. “Had we listened to them, we would have lost very many opportunities … and very many serious economic achievements.”

He said Chinese companies had brought the most investments to Hungary in 2020, 2023, and 2024, and during the past ten years, some 54 large investment projects had arrived from China at a total value of over 17 billion euros, creating some 40,000 jobs.

He added that these investments had enabled Hungary to become a leader in the global car industry revolution which was unprecedented for a long time.

Szijjártó said China was the number two import source for Hungary, and trade turnover was above annual 10 billion euros for several years in a row.

He also said that for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, last year the number of guest nights by Chinese tourists returned to above half a million, with 21 regular flights between Budapest and seven Chinese cities each week. He added that Hungary was the biggest central European food exporter to China.

Szijjártó said that Hungary had become a meeting point of eastern and western investments. “As a result, we have a vested interest in cooperation to survive, and not only Hungarian-Chinese cooperation but also cooperation between China and the European Union should return to normal,” he added. He said global trade cooperation should not be about the formation of blocs and an economic cold war, but about effective cooperation based on respect.

As we wrote earlier, new Hungarian airline starts service in February from Budapest to Hong Kong

More flights on the horizon: Budapest and this immensely popular Asian country to deepen aviation ties