\n<\/p>\n
The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, received a gift of fine cognac at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace in Paris and was cheered in Belgrade by Serbians waving Chinese flags, albeit most of them were bused-in government workers.<\/p>\n
And by the time he left Hungary on Friday at the end of a six-day European tour, the clouds over his country\u2019s relations with the West looked much less dark, at least from China\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
Mr. Xi told<\/a> President Emmanuel Macron of France that relations would be \u201cas vibrant and thriving as springtime.\u201d At his next stop, he said<\/a> the \u201ctree of China-Serbia friendship will grow tall and sturdy.\u201d In Hungary, Mr. Xi told<\/a> Prime Minister Viktor Orban that their countries were poised to \u201cembark on a golden voyage.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chinese state-run news media, never less than glowing about Mr. Xi, went to strenuous lengths to present his European meetings as a triumph.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There were no breakthroughs on trade, the war in Ukraine or other issues that have soured ties \u2014 just a long list of new joint projects that China says it will help finance. Hungary got 18, Serbia dozens more. French companies inked deals on energy, finance and transport projects.<\/p>\n But the red carpet receptions Mr. Xi received in all three countries helped cast a rosier hue on ties between China and Europe, which have only worsened since he last visited five years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n China\u2019s rigid restrictions on travel for much of the Covid-19 pandemic deterred high-level visits in either direction. And just as the Covid crisis began to fade, Europe\u2019s estrangement from China deepened when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched his full invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.<\/p>\n This week, after first stopping in Paris, Mr. Xi traveled to Serbia and Hungary, which have remained reliably pro-China on a continent where, according to opinion polls, China\u2019s reputation has taken a nosedive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic declared that his country felt only \u201creverence and love\u201d for the Chinese president, and the police detained followers of the banned Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong to make sure they wouldn\u2019t disrupt the government-orchestrated welcome for Mr. Xi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Hungary, Mr. Orban assured Mr. Xi, the leader of the world\u2019s biggest communist country, that he would \u201cfeel at home\u201d in Budapest<\/a>, though the city is studded with monuments to the fight against communism. The police banned a protest planned for the center of Budapest and cleared a busy district of people so Mr. Xi could visit an office tower undisturbed on Friday.<\/p>\n Mr. Xi\u2019s goal on his European tour was to \u201cdemonstrate and strengthen China\u2019s ability to retain friendly ties with Europe despite NATO and Ukraine,\u201d said Yun Sun<\/a>, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. France, Serbia and Hungary, she added, are \u201cabout the most China-friendly countries\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n And though it is only about the size of Indiana and has fewer than 10 million people, Hungary will play an outsize role when it takes over the European Union\u2019s rotating presidency this year. That role is mostly bureaucratic, but it will allow Hungary to try to set the agenda for meetings of the Council of the European Union, the bloc\u2019s dominant power center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHungary is China\u2019s Trojan horse in the European Union,\u201d said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China expert at the Asia Center, a research group in Paris. Mr. Xi, he added, did not achieve much during his stop in France, but he \u201chelped China\u2019s position\u201d by cementing his country\u2019s ties to Serbia and Hungary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In an interview with Magyar Nemzet, a Hungarian news media outlet controlled by Mr. Orban\u2019s governing Fidesz party, Mr. Xi expressed hope that Hungary would <\/span>\u201ctake the lead\u201d in \u201cmaintaining the correct direction of E.U.-China relations.\u201d<\/p>\n Noah Barkin<\/a>, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States who studies European-Chinese relations, said China would be wrong to hope that Mr. Orban can use Hungary\u2019s council presidency, which lasts only six months, to shift European policy significantly. \u201cThe idea that Hungary will be able to do China\u2019s bidding during its presidency is fanciful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But Mr. Orban has a long history of swimming against the tide set by more powerful European countries. He was the only E.U. leader to travel to Beijing in October for a gathering celebrating Mr. Xi\u2019s pet foreign policy initiative, the Belt and Road infrastructure program. He was also the only leader who blocked a statement the European Union had planned to issue in 2021 criticizing China over its crackdown in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n China and Hungary are \u201cnatural allies\u201d because they share a commitment to pursuing their own national interests no matter what anyone else says, a pro-government Hungarian commentator, Levente Sitkei, told Magyar Nemzet<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cChina makes alliances that it thinks useful and will never, in any forum, care about how others think,\u201d Mr. Sitkei said. \u201cHungary acts in exactly the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Even before Mr. Xi\u2019s trip, China had been making some progress on restoring influence in Europe. Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, flew to Beijing last month<\/a> and softened his warnings on trade tensions by emphasizing his country\u2019s commitment to doing business with China.<\/p>\n Some in Beijing seem confident that China will succeed in coaxing European governments away from alignment with Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEven if European politicians often put on a big show of shaking their fists at China, in their hearts they well know that Europe cannot do without the contribution from economic cooperation with China,\u201d Wang Wen<\/a>, a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, told Guancha, a Chinese news website<\/a>, this week. \u201cMore and more Europeans are waking up to the fact that after losing Russia, they cannot now lose China.\u201d<\/p>\n Many in Europe, however, remain deeply wary of Mr. Xi\u2019s partnership with Mr. Putin \u2014 a relationship that will be back in the spotlight when Mr. Putin visits China in the coming weeks. A rash of recent arrests in Britain<\/a> and Germany<\/a> of people <\/span>accused of spying for China has also raised anxieties.<\/p>\n And even on trade, which Mr. Xi highlighted as the lifeblood of <\/span>cooperation, tensions are rising over a surge of Chinese-made electric vehicles and other products.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cXi\u2019s trip will not have reassured anyone who was hoping for signs that China is taking Europe\u2019s concerns seriously,\u201d Mr. Barkin said.<\/p>\n The final day of Mr. Xi\u2019s stay in Hungary was strikingly uneventful for a leader whose usually full agenda has earned him the nickname<\/a> chairman of everything. Mr. Orban gave Mr. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, a tour of Budapest, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe two leaders sat gazing out the window at clouds rolling by,\u201d the Xinhua report said. \u201cThey spoke at ease about their experiences growing up and thoughts on governance, and they reached many points of consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Barnabas Heincz contributed reporting from Budapest, and David Pierson from Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n