Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Leader, Meets With Xi in China After Talks With Putin

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary met with China’s leader, Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday, courting another authoritarian partner after talks with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow last week.

In announcing Mr. Orban’s visit to Beijing, China’s official Xinhua news agency said only that Mr. Xi would hold an “in-depth discussion with him on issues of mutual interest.” The leaders last met two months ago, when Mr. Xi visited Budapest as part of a drive to restore Chinese influence in Europe.

Chinese state television said that Mr. Xi and Mr. Orban were holding talks in the Diaooyutai State Guesthouse, but gave no other details.

This meeting will give Mr. Xi and Mr. Orban, an outlier in the European Union on support for Ukraine and other issues, a chance to urge the bloc to distance itself from Washington. Hungary began its six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union this month, giving Mr. Orban a higher profile, though not much more influence, in wider European affairs.

“Our two countries of China and Hungary have similar philosophies and both esteem independence and acting on one’s own initiative,” Mr. Xi told Mr. Orban in May, according to an official Chinese summary of their talks.

Western European leaders have long distanced themselves from Mr. Orban, and when he visited Moscow last week, they emphasized that he did not speak for the European Union. They are likely to take a similarly skeptical view of Mr. Orban’s talks with Mr. Xi in Beijing, during which the two leaders are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine.