China Is Not A Pacifist Power - an interview of Liu He and Sam George by the Hungarian magazine Magyar Narancs
Talking geopolitics, military, national security, economy, all that good stuff about China in Hungary and Europe at large, in Budapest in the momentous week of the Hungarian election this April.
In a historic general election, Victor Orban, Hungary’s Prime Minister for 16 years and Europe’s longest service prime minister to date, fell from his throne. A liberal-turned-populist, his rein was marred by controversies of nepotism, anti-democratic practices, pro-Russia foreign policy and a pivot to China.
I luckily had the chance to visit Budapest in person during the eventful week of April 12, and sat down for an interview with the famed Hungarian national magazine Magyar Narancs, first issued on October 24, 1989, just one day after the end of communism and the founding of the Republic of Hungary, replacing the People’s Republic. My friend from Asia Society, Sam George, was simultaneously interviewed too. He is an accomplished China analyst, a fellow Oxonian and now a Senior Fellow at the Center on US-China Relations.
The day Orban fell, I received an email from a friend, titled “Good job in Hungary”, and the message read: “I see that you and XXX did a good job restoring democracy in Hungary. Great!” This is of course pure banter, but I did not mind indulging for one second and fantasising being the straw that breaks a camel’s back wherever autocratic forces gather. So I replied: “Perhaps Beijing next?”
“No, not next. You need to warm up on some smaller problems.”
The interview itself is actually very little to do with Hungary per se, but mostly on China’s influence in Europe and the decline of the west. At any rate, since Hungary and China have been cozying up for years and Hungary is effectively rendered the CCP’s favourite backdoor into Europe, I’d count my pushing back against CCP influence in Europe in my good deeds towards the people of Hungary and Europe. So here’s me doing my entirely insignificant part in “peacefully evolving” Hungary.
Enjoy.
Leo
PS: Here’s the magazine cover and the interview in Hungarian. I thought it’s quite cool!
For quick navigation to the specific sections:
A crisis of Western confidence
China prefers monolithic, predictable, ideally one-man power structures. The logic of democratic alternation of power — with opposition parties and uncertainty — is alien to it.
Magyar Narancs: It is often suggested that Chinese influence poses a threat to Western democracies, yet in Trump’s second term, we may also have reason to worry about the behavior of the United States.
Sam Chetwin George: What is changing dramatically is not only the way the world perceives the roles of China and the United States, but also the classic narrative that sharply distinguishes democracy from authoritarianism. While JD Vance openly endorsed Viktor Orbán, Xi Jinping did not overtly participate in the Hungarian elections. The U.S. national security strategy quite openly backs “like-minded” political forces in Europe — far-right, nationalist, “anti-woke” actors — and the transatlantic relationship has been shaken. But none of this means that China is not also trying to advance its interests in Europe. It may proceed in a less ideological manner, but alongside business partnerships it is also seeking political ties and security cooperation. And, as in Viktor Orbán’s case, it consistently finds that less democratic leaders are much easier to deal with. The kind of security agreement signed by the Hungarian and Chinese governments in 2024 is not at all unusual wherever significant Chinese interests or assets are present. At the same time, such arrangements can easily erode democratic institutions, because they tend to strengthen the executive branch — that is, the political leadership in power.
Liu He: At the moment, there is no obvious risk of China interfering in European elections, but where it sees the need and has the capacity, it does use such methods: in Africa, for instance, it builds strong influence through investments, media presence, and political ties. By the very nature of an authoritarian system, the Chinese leadership — lacking democratic legitimacy at home — also perceives other democracies as a threat. China cooperated with and learned from Western countries during its rise, but by now it feels it has acquired the knowledge it needs; it would like to preserve the economic relationship, while remaining unwilling to undergo political change. China prefers monolithic, predictable, ideally one-man power structures. The logic of democratic alternation of power — with opposition parties and uncertainty — is alien to it. It wants to do long-term business with a stable leader.
What are we misunderstanding when we view China as a reliable business partner?
SCG: We forget that the Chinese Communist Party follows the Soviet model, on Leninist foundations. To this day, the Chinese leadership blames the West for the collapse of the Soviet Union and sees the liberation of the post-Soviet region as a series of “color revolutions.” The lesson they drew is that democracies subvert authoritarian systems from within. Xi Jinping sees himself as the heir to the October Revolution, and although the Soviet experiment failed, the historical project, in his eyes, did not end. Today’s global Chinese initiatives — on security, civilization, or development — are all meant to make Chinese norms of governance and security into international standards, and to create a world order more favorable to China. In this sense, Hungary can be seen as a testing ground.
Speaking with a Chinese and a New Zealand researcher, one inevitably wonders how objective one can be on the subject of China.
LH: I grew up in Beijing, but I attended high school and university in the United Kingdom. When I returned to China, I realized that the system keeps reproducing severe crises — from the Great Leap Forward and the famine to the Cultural Revolution and the events of June 4, 1989 and lately Zero-Covid Policy. However much China may appear to be a success story, in recent years emigration has become strikingly visible: businesspeople, students, and lower-income groups alike have been leaving the country in large numbers. I am convinced that China’s economic rise should not be attributed to the Party’s “grand design,” but rather to the fact that the authorities relaxed their grip while ordinary people tried to make their way despite the system. It is also clear that China would not be where it is without the West: without Jimmy Carter’s normalization of relations, Richard Nixon’s visit, the advice of liberal economists like János Kornai, American information technology, and European markets. So the question is: did the Party lift China up — or hold it back for decades?
SCG: I was born in Hong Kong, raised in a New Zealand family, and now work in New York at the Asia Society. My method, however, is a straightforward one: I study the history, ideology, bureaucracy, and propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party. I have been greatly influenced by Geremie Barmé’s “New Sinology,” according to which China must be read through its own intellectual history and political traditions. The main pillar of my work is that I take seriously what the Party itself says, because the system produces an enormous number of documents, and often does state its intentions quite clearly — just not always through the same channel.
The issue is rather that the West has visibly lost confidence in itself: it has become uncertain about its own institutions, its own politics, even about democratic elections themselves. Into that intellectual vacuum has burst “Chinamaxxing” — the overestimation and romanticization of China.
For a long time it was almost a cliché to say that real economic and technological breakthroughs are born in democracies. Today, however, neither Trump nor Xi nor Putin seems to believe that idea. Could that theory collapse?
SCG: Faith in it has clearly weakened, and one sign of that is the growing Western phenomenon known as “Chinamaxxing”: the idea that China is not just a successful rival, but the future itself, perhaps even capable of answering civilizational questions that Western democracies cannot. Sometimes this enthusiasm is superficial and fashionable; sometimes it poses as a serious intellectual position. According to older modernization theory, autocracies are inherently limited, whereas democracies generate genuine innovation through free thought, competition, and a strong civil society. There is much truth in that: the internet and artificial intelligence both emerged in democratic contexts. Yet while the United States lacks a coherent industrial policy sustained across administrations, China’s planning system has demonstrated its own strengths. The Party clearly defines strategic goals, allocates resources accordingly, and economic actors know exactly which sectors they must compete in to win state support — for example, in electric vehicle manufacturing. For reasons of national security, the Chinese leadership wants an economy that does not depend on American power and can, if necessary, be mobilized for war.
LH: The issue is rather that the West has visibly lost confidence in itself: it has become uncertain about its own institutions, its own politics, even about democratic elections themselves. Into that intellectual vacuum has burst “Chinamaxxing” — the overestimation and romanticization of China. This is not a new phenomenon: from the orientalist fascination of the colonial era to Maoist nostalgia, from celebrations of the Beijing Consensus to pro-China influencers, there have always been efforts to paint autocracies as glittering, modern, and successful. But China only looks strong from the outside; in reality, it is a paper tiger. Almost all of Chinese provinces are as indebted as Greece was in 2010, and the state uses its own banking system to finance megalomaniacal national vanity projects in infrastructure, real estate and other sectors. The system may not collapse tomorrow, but Beijing’s bureaucracy is locked into firefighting every single day.
Where do you draw the line on Chinese firms abroad?
A company like CATL cannot simply say no if Beijing asks something of it.
In Hungary, two Chinese giants, BYD and CATL, have established themselves with the government’s support. Could China use economic dependence as a geopolitical weapon in the same way Russia used energy?
SCG: One of Xi Jinping’s main objectives was to subordinate the private sector to the Party. The crackdown on Alibaba founder Jack Ma — who had become increasingly critical of the Party — was a highly visible example of this and a clear signal to the business world. Chinese firms, especially in sensitive industries, can only truly thrive if they align themselves with the Party’s five-year plans and national security goals, and Beijing is consciously trying to make other countries dependent on Chinese supply chains. Xi openly said six years ago that China was seeking to build a “capacity for retaliation.” Hungary, as an EU member state, is therefore an ideal tunnel into one of the world’s largest markets. I do not yet see China actually using economic dependence as a weapon in a fully explicit way in Hungary, but I do see that it has been given an opportunity to entrench industrial standards — alongside tax incentives and relaxed environmental rules.
LH: The main question is where Hungary draws the line in the face of Chinese corporate expansion. After the pandemic, Xi Jinping truly “put the private sector in order”: the Party no longer exclusively suppresses major private companies but seeks to integrate them into the system. Large firsmt in China compete with one another until some win and become designated as “national champions,” and then explicitly begin to serve the state’s strategic aims. A company like CATL cannot simply say no if Beijing asks something of it.
After a change of government in Hungary, could a new administration renegotiate the deals made with Chinese firms? Could we use our exclusive position to secure better terms?
SCG: Yes, and in such negotiations the issues could include compliance with environmental rules, increasing the share of local labor, or keeping a larger portion of the economic benefits in Hungary. Everything depends on how much room for maneuver Beijing perceives it has — Australia and Lithuania show that China is willing to apply economic pressure — and on what strategy the Hungarians formulate. Many countries make the mistake of not having a clear position, whereas China very much does: it has a capable bureaucracy and pre-planned scenarios.
East is rising, west is falling? Or maybe not
China is already a military actor — and the main hidden enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine.
The war in Iran and the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz highlight the weakening role of the United States as the guarantor of global security. Could China emerge as a genuine global military power?
SCG: Despite its current stumbles, the United States still has the most extensive military infrastructure in the world, with broad alliance systems and bases, including through NATO. China has so far been a free rider in that system, benefiting from secure maritime trade routes and American security guarantees, while using its free resources to build up its own economy and industry. For Beijing, it is a risk that American power — partly because of Donald Trump’s politics — is changing shape, weakening, and becoming less predictable. That is why China is compelled to build up its own security capabilities, intelligence, economic defenses, and protection of overseas interests. But, in the immediate term, it is not going to copy the burdensome American model; it will move toward a more targeted security system.
LH: Even so, China is already a military actor — and the main hidden enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine. Sometimes, certain European countries have a tendency to forget that. China’s military budget is growing rapidly, even though the United States or anyone have any prospect of invading China. So what is China’s military budget preparing for? The answer is simply Taiwan: the Party’s goal is the unification of a Greater China, by military means if necessary. And Taiwan is a developed economy, a thriving democracy, and a key node in the global supply chain for semiconductors and AI. Its fall would trigger a global shock.
SCG: China may present itself as having “peaceful DNA”, but it is not a pacifist power. Just remember the image of Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un together at the September military parade in Beijing last year: that is a picture of a world order they would like to see. When Xi speaks of the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” that includes the unification of Taiwan and the reordering of the South China Sea in line with Chinese interests. China has territorial disputes with several of its neighbors, and through the war in Ukraine it is supporting a conflict that serves its interests — weakening NATO, tying down American attention, while obtaining favorable energy deals. It is a cynical strategy, but a coherent and effective one.
The decline of the West is an old trope in European thought, one that Orbán and the MAGA camp also like to emphasize. Do ideologues of the Chinese Party-state also believe that the West is in decline?
LH: This is not a new idea in China but one of Maoism’s core assumptions: it holds the Party together, gives direction to society, and generates a political energy. Never mind that Europe and America remain economically powerful and are still the birthplace of vital technologies and innovation — the Western public sphere is fond of dwelling on its own problems, while official Chinese discourse relentlessly pushes for its own success stories. In my view, the “decline narrative” does more to force the West into continuous self-reflection and adaptation than actually reflecting reality. However, t is important to recognize that the decline narrative can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if over-repeated and taken too seriously.
SCG: And there are plenty of people eager to repeat it. When Viktor Orbán spoke of an “east wind” blowing through the world, he was in fact repeating a Maoist narrative: the idea that the center of gravity of history is shifting to Asia, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Think tanks linked to Chinese state security keep publishing analyses about “the end of the West,” the weakening of transatlantic unity, and the fault lines of European identity politics. Western leaders such as Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Carney are also speaking about a crisis of confidence. But the self-examination of Western countries should also be seen as a sign of healthy functioning rather than purely as a cause of paralysis and defeatism.
About us
The Peking Hotel podcast and newsletter are digital publications in which Liu He interviews China specialists about their first-hand experiences and observations from decades past. The project grew out of Liu’s research at Hoover Institution collecting oral history of China experts living in the U.S. Their stories are a reminder of what China used to be and what it is capable of becoming.
We also have a Chinese-language Substack. We hope to publish more conversations like this one, so stay tuned!
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This was a really illuminating read. Thank you so much.
In recent years Xi and co have been trying to centralize China and have been having some success, although there are strong signals that in some key aspects they still have ways to go and there is pushback developing. From the 1980s on (at least until recently) China has in some key economic system and governance system ways was more closely resembled old America than contemporary America does.
In fact in the latter 1970s and early 1980s, CPC some local party branches actually referenced the reforms of the mi 19th century American Jacksonians to argue for the reforms that ended up being enacted, and the Chinese system has in key ways looked remarkably like the system of America from the 1830s until some point after ww2 (although some of those features had been diminishing over time, but they were still quite there), for example, the Guangzhou Municipal Party School in the late 1970s, there are reports from interviews with later reform officials (such as in Deng era memoirs) that Guangzhou’s reformist intellectual circles made reference to designs established during the period of Jacksonian Democracy such as infrastructure financing models, local tax share-dominance and retention, the benefits of city-led economic experimentation, etc. And Shanghai Economic Research Institutes in the early 1980s compared 19th-century American city-state relationships to their desired trajectory for Chinese coastal cities, which were strong port cities with fiscal and legal tools to manage foreign trade, investment, and currency operations.