By Davide Rossi *
From 5 to 10 May 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Europe with a three-stop visit. He arrived in the old continent on May 5, the day the philosopher and economist great Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, in 1818.
Last glimmers of dialogue
The only window open for an attempt at dialogue with the European Union is in France. In fact, China, despite President Macron’s words that openly harbinger war, considered it useless to dialogue with the German and Italian prime ministers and the representatives of the European institutions in Brussels. Instead, Xi will try to reiterate to the Frenchman, although faithful executor of the orders of international speculative finance, that to build a world of peace, cooperation is the only way. This is by all means an alternative to the death projects of NATO, which aim to continue the Ukrainian conflict and open new war scenarios in various other parts of the world, from the Middle East to the Pacific.
Apparently, Mrs. von der Leyen has asked to participate in at least one of the Sino-French bilateral. President Xi will use the opportunity to reiterate that the sanctions against Russia and the duties against China affect European citizens and not the two Euro-Asian nations, increasingly in dialogue with the rest of the global South.
Belgrade and Budapest: sovereign Europe passes through here
The other two stops are highly significant: One will take place in Serbia and the other in Hungary. The Chinese president will be in Belgrade on May 7 to remember, together with President Vučić, the 25th anniversary of NATO’s aggression against Serbia. This aggression had led, in addition to spreading death and destruction for several months, precisely to what occurred that May 7, 1999: The deliberate destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, resulting in the death of three Chinese officials and the wounding of several others. The excellent relations between China and Serbia will be an opportunity for Beijing to confirm its support for Serbian independence and sovereignty, against projects that aim to force the Balkan nation into the difficult European alleys and the related subjection to Atlanticist interests.
In both Serbia and Hungary, Xi Jinping will have the opportunity to confirm his esteem for the ability of the two nations to keep the dialogue with Russia and President Vladimir Putin alive and open. Precisely as a function of a renewed and constant Chinese commitment to peace, the Hungarian stop should be read, in homage to the Hungarian prime minister who, accused by the Western media of autocracy, not only regularly wins elections, but also tirelessly promotes dialogue with Russia and China in a renewed commitment to an independent Hungary that is not dominated by Washington and Brussels. In fact, Beijing is in perfect harmony with Viktor Orbán with respect to the prospect of economic and cultural exchange. The first Chinese university for over five thousand students should open precisely in Hungary. Currently, the Hungarian pro-Europeans, self-styled democrats still block it. They are acting by a constant ferocious anti-communism and in full subservience to Atlantic unipolarity, with symmetrical aversion to a multipolar world and peace.
Vučić and Orbán – it should also be remembered – were the only European heads of state and government present at the third Silk Road Forum for International Cooperation, held in the presence of President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the 17th October 18, 2023.
In Hungary, the Chinese president will also inaugurate an electric car factory in Pécs. The “Great Wall Car Factory”, founded in 1984 at the instigation of the great Deng Xiaoping, will produce here. The car manufacturer is the protagonist in recent times of the most extraordinary production of ecological vehicles at affordable prices. An important initiative therefore for Europe which aspires to join China in its commitment to a more eco-compatible world, but which will certainly be ignored or denigrated by the Western media, increasingly complacent towards the nefarious and heavy Cold War climate.
This article was published first on Sinistra.ch here. Translation from Italian by UWI.
* Davide Rossi, with an education in history, is a teacher and journalist. He is director of the Anna Seghers Study Center in Milan, Italy and a member of the Foreign Press Association Milan.