Hungary blocks EU statement criticising China over Hong Kong, diplomats say
Hungary has blocked a European Union statement criticising China’s new security law in Hong Kong, two diplomats said, in a move likely to undermine efforts to confront Beijing’s curbing of freedoms in the former British colony.
The EU, which aims to support Britain and the United States in upholding human rights in Hong Kong, was due to make its statement on Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, but failed to win the necessary agreement from all 27 EU states.
“Hungary’s argument was that the EU already has too many issues with China,” a senior EU diplomat told Reuters. A second senior diplomat confirmed the blockage and Hungary’s position. An EU official said the statement had been withdrawn from the EU’s approval process.
China and the EU imposed tit-for-tat sanctions over Western accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang on March 22.
Hungarian diplomats in Brussels were not immediately available for comment. Budapest reluctantly supported the EU sanctions last month, calling them “pointless”, and hosted China’s defence minister for an official visit days after the EU sanctions decision.
Hungary is a large recipient of Chinese investment. In the past both Hungary and Greece, where China’s COSCO Shipping has a majority stake in Greece’s largest port, have blocked EU statements on China.
Beijing’s top representative in Hong Kong this week warned foreign powers that they would be taught a lesson if they tried to interfere in China’s management of the global financial hub, as tensions escalated between China and Western governments over the city.
The West says the new Hong Kong security law breaks a promise to maintain a high degree of autonomy for the city since its 1997 return to Chinese rule.
China’s supporters say the law has restored order following mass anti-government and anti-China protests in 2019.
The impasse is the latest blow to the EU’s credentials as a defender of human rights, one of the diplomats said, and raises questions about the economically powerful EU’s “soft power” that relies on inspiring countries to follow its example by outlawing the death penalty and upholding press freedoms.
It also underscores the EU’s challenge in balancing business ties with China, its second-largest trade partner, and its ability to speak out against Chinese government crackdowns in Hong Kong, on human rights lawyers since 2015 and on Muslim Uighurs in northwestern China.
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Source: Reuters
China is in clear breach of The Sino-British Declaration Treaty signed in 1984 regarding the future of Hong Kong. Other EU member states recognise this fact. Hungary should stop playing games and being disruptive just for the sake of it.
I suggest that the Hungarian Government reads The Sino-British Declaration Treaty signed in 1984 regarding the future of Hong Kong. Just because the Hungarian government has got into bed with the Chinese does not mean that it should not recognise that China is blatantly breaking an international treaty.
Hungary is lost. China does what it wants and Hungary thinks it has a say in what goes on. Szijjártó just looks a fool. China is laughing its head off and has found a weak country as a way to manoeuvre its way into Europe. Read the treaty. Stop playing games Hungary. You don’t understand what you are up against.
Is it me or does Szijjártó bear a striking resemblance to Himmler. Scary thought.
It just makes Hungary look stupid AGAIN. What an embarrassment.
Hungary should just look after the interest of Hungarians. The EU should stop issuing useless statements
criticizing China’s new security law in Hong Kong. China does not care. If the EU was serious, they would stop trade with China. The other solution can be to accept citizens of Hong Kong as refugees.
Anonymous, your comments show that you are ignorant of foreign affairs. Try not to show it so often.
Maria Von Theresa’s suggestion to accept citizens of Hong Kong as refugees into (Western) Europe is very sensible.
Not only will it help ‘quench the thirst’ that Brussels apparently has for importing ‘refugees’ into Europe but these particular individuals will NOT be the illiterate, rapacious, Muslim ‘illegals’ that have been invading this continent for the past several years.
Everyone knows that the Chinese are hard-working and residents of Hong Kong are especially renown for that trait.
However, it is MOST unlikely that the poofy-woofy / licky-licky bureaucrats in Brussels – yet alone their left-wing / liberal political masters – would accept such a proposal as it goes against their ‘core aim’ of Islamifying Western Europe.
By the way, ‘Anonymous’ (or is it ‘Mario’ in drag ?) apparently suffers from ‘contributis extremis’, which is a written form of verbal diarrhoea.
He should start taking medication for his problem or he’ll crap himself to death.
There are more than one Anonymous contributors to this piece. Anyway, the UK is already accepting Hong Kongers fleeing China’s illegally refashioned Hong Kong. So Mara and Alfred, put that in your pipes and smoke it.
Three million Hong Kong residents have been offered the chance to settle in the UK and then after five years they can apply for citizenship. In passing a new security law by the Hong Kong authorities there is a clear and serious breach of the 1985 Sino-British joint declaration. The Uighur Muslims have been treated appallingly, and yet China denies any knowledge of the work camps or factories they are supposedly forced to work in. Let alone the forced sterilisation. Even with satellite imagery to back it up, they still deny any mistreatment. Also huge mistrust surrounding 5G and Huawei.
In case anyone pulls me up on the date. The treaty was signed on 19 December 1984 but came into force on 27 May 1985. It was registered by the Chinese and British governments at the UN on 12 June 1985.
Seems like the professional hater here is so obsessed with me that he sees me even when i am not commenting. Surely he needs some serious psychotherapy. In that aspect, he can ask for some precious advice to his urban victorious hero, the one who is selling Hungary to China.
Just because you are trading with a country, it doesn’t mean any more than that.
Pity you guys want to read more into it than it really is.
Can you please come down to earth.
There is also another thing and it is called DIPLOMACY.
I am fully aware that you “lefties” don’t have an idea what that is.
With the exception of Maria von Teresa.
We had all thought that Mario had permanently gone ‘underground’, like the illegal migrant cockroaches he keeps as pets.
Thank goodness he has re-surfaced.
It is is much easier to throw darts at a visible target.
I don’t think OBSERVER has any idea about this subject. Hides his/her ignorance saying about the “lefties”.
Well the EU is so flipping concerned about what’s happening elsewhere in the world such as CHINA! It can’t get its own head out of its a** to worry of even concern itself of ethnic (Russian, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian and other minorities) just outside the Schengen border in Ukraine. The EU kisses up the the Ukrainian Leadership while it sits on its big flabby a** and does nothing while its military/skinheads create havoc on anyone not speaking their *** language fluently. oh, and how the EU wants to bring them in to join NATO, why so that they can send the minorities in to fight the Russian Bear and get slaughered. Does the Ukraine actually think that the US will do anything here?! Really?! Maybe somebody should refresh the people about Hungary 1956!
“WUNHUNGLOW” should change his / hers / its name to ‘NO BALLS AT ALL’.
The ‘lefties’ [read here Communist + Socialist + Poofie Woofie + Licky Licky + migrant + Islamic-loving ‘brown tongues’] pose an ENORMOUS threat to democracy and free speech within Europe.
Play with that thought, you idiot, instead of yourself !
Steady on there AlfredE.Neuman, your blood pressure must be off the scale
Yes, not sure Mr Neuman’s comments have anything to do with the article …. but his rants never make sense.