Why plans for a Chinese university in Hungary fuel concerns

Critics say Hungary’s planned Fudan University campus is a sign of growing reliance on China.

Hungary’s political opposition has pledged to block the construction of the first Chinese university in the EU, as arguments persist over the project’s financial and security risks. Mayor of Budapest Gergely Karacsony, who hopes to run as the opposition candidate for prime minister in elections next year, promised to use “all possible legal and political means” to halt the plan of the right-wing government to build a campus for Fudan University in the capital. The Shanghai-based institution, which ranks among the world’s top 200 universities, wants to launch the campus by 2024.