Chinese police will soon be patrolling streets alongside local counterparts in Hungarian cities, according to a new agreement.
While China already has a similar agreement with Serbia, Hungary is set to become the first European Union and NATO member to formally host officers from the one-party state, which the 27-nation bloc considers a “systemic rival.”
This official law enforcement presence follows allegations that China has been operating clandestine “police stations” in dozens of cities worldwide. In a 2022 report, Spain-based human rights organization Safeguard Defenders detailed how this shadowy network, believed to be part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front influence apparatus, intimidate and surveil dissidents, asylum-seekers, and ethnic minorities living abroad.
The agreement, inked last month by Hungarian Minister of the Interior Sandor Pinter and Chinese Minister for Public Safety Wang Xiaohong, is aimed at boosting security in well-trafficked tourist areas, the Ministry of the Interior told Hungarian news portal Telex last week.
Hungary’s Ministry of the Interior and the Chinese embassy in Budapest did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
The ministry said: “Police officers from the two countries will in the future be able to carry out patrol duties together, thus helping to improve communication between the citizens and the authorities of the two countries and improving internal security and public order.”
Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
Such an arrangement is not unheard of between neighbors on the continent. Hungarian police join patrols in Croatia during the coastal country’s peak tourism season, and Austrian police do the same at tourist hotspots in Hungary, the ministry pointed out.
However, the arrangement raises questions over how closely Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s China-friendly government will keep tabs on the visiting law enforcements’ activities.
Safeguard Defenders identified two illegal police hubs in the Central European country’s capital of Budapest that it said were run by China’s Qingtian and Fuzhou public security bureaus.
The U.S. is on high alert over suspected cases of Chinese transnational repression such as those detailed in the NGO’s report.
Last April, Chinese nationals Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, were arrested for allegedly running a secret police station in the Chinatown of New York City’s Manhattan. The two claimed they were running “service centers” to assist other Chinese.
Lu and Chen were charged with obstruction of justice and conspiring to act as agents for China.
“As alleged, the defendants and their co-conspirators were tasked with doing the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) bidding, including helping locate a Chinese dissident living in the United States, and obstructed our investigation by deleting their communications. Such a police station has no place here in New York City—or any American community.” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York was quoted as saying in a Department of Justice press release.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.