China’s Xi receives ceremonial welcome in Hungary ahead of talks with Orbán

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping received a ceremonial welcome in Hungary’s capital on Thursday ahead of a day of talks with Hungarian officials which are expected to result in further Chinese investments in the Central European country.

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok received Xi in an opulent courtyard of Budapest’s Buda Castle, where the two men walked down a red carpet beside a ceremonial honor guard and listened to the Chinese and Hungarian national anthems.

Numerous Chinese and Hungarian officials attended the ceremony, including Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s long-serving populist leader who has pursued deeper ties with Beijing while distancing himself from his more mainstream partners in the European Union.

Xi arrived in Hungary late Wednesday in a European tour that also took in Serbia and France. He will hold talks later in the day with Orbán and other officials on potential Chinese investments in Hungary in infrastructure, energy and electric vehicle manufacturing.

Beijing has invested billions in Hungary and sees the EU member as an important foothold inside the 27-member trading bloc. In December, Hungary announced that one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers, China’s BYD, will open its first European EV production factory in the south of the country — an inroad that could upend the competitiveness of the continent’s auto industry.

Hungary is also hosting several Chinese EV battery plants and hopes to become a global hub of lithium ion battery manufacturing, and has undertaken a railway project to connect the country with the Chinese-controlled port of Piraeus in Greece as an entry point for Chinese goods to Central and Eastern Europe.

Both governments have been careful to