The Duran Podcast - Multipolar Europe. Xi Jinping meets Vucic and Orban

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Multipolar Europe. Xi Jinping meets Vucic and Orban

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Xi Jinping's trip to Serbia and Hungary. And maybe we can start with his trip to Serbia. And interesting speech from Vuchich with a huge crowd in attendance. And then we can shift to Xi's meeting in Budapest with Victor Orban. a very interesting statement and speech from Victor Oban. Interesting way that Vucchich and Orban welcomed Xi Jinping when he arrived in their countries. A very, very big ceremony to welcome Xi Jinping to Serbia and then to Hungary. I think that says a lot.

and an admission, a recognition that the power in the world today is China and that we are indeed in a multipolar world. So I think that was that was the big message that we got not from China but from Serbia and from Hungary. And all of this follows Blinkin's trip and Yellen, Yellen and Blinkin's trip to Beijing. where we had warnings and threats and ultimatums to China. So what are your thoughts with this trip? Well, I'm going to go against what I think is the conventional wisdom. And I'm going to say that I think that the main purpose of Xi Jinping's trip to Europe

was actually to visit Serbia and Hungary. He had to go to a West European country. and meet a leading EU leaders because if he'd just gone to Hungary and Serbia, it would have seemed like it was some kind of hostile move. So that's why he went to Paris. He went to Paris because he knows that Macron is a little bit flaky. He's somebody that you can talk to at other times

and he'd come along and can agree with you. So you can have a kind of civil meeting and conversation with him. Of course, he had his mind of there, Macron, his mind of that in the person of Ursula von der Leyen. But there we go. You'd make him quite sure that he didn't slip, go out of line. I mean, it was a ludicrous performance, by the way. And there's reports that Macron now wants to,

is so frustrated by it that he wants to get Ursula von der Leyen removed as EU Commission President. I was going to say that. You read my light. I was going to say that. Now we know they don't like each other. And who are they thinking of? Draghi, of course.

Draghi, of course. Exactly. I mean, yeah. But anyway, this is just, Cicheng did that. More, I think, for appearances than because he was really expecting to talk substantive issues with Macron.

The really important part of his trip was his trips. to Serbia and Hungary. And the dynamics here are completely different. And you're absolutely right. Very warm welcome. Hvuzich, very warm welcome from Orbán. The Serbs and the Hungarians go out of their way at a government level to make Xi Jinping welcome in their countries.

But it's not just a government level, because the most interesting thing was, especially in Serbia, thousands of people coming out to meet Xi Jinping. He's given a very warm reception at a, you know, at a public level as well. The Serb public, and I get the sense

of the Hungarian public too, are delighted and thrilled to have the Chinese president in their country. Very different again for what you tend to see when Xi Jinping travels now in Europe. So extremely warm visits, Xi Jinping coming, making it absolutely clear that China supports Serbia, that they have

what the Chinese call an ironclad friendship. And remember this points both ways because, of course, it's a client flat, ironclad friends. on Serbia's parts towards China. But it's also China showing that it has an ironclad friendship towards Serbia. And in fact, the Chinese media have been talking about how the two countries have always had good relations. They've had good relations throughout their histories.

How China always lends a helping hand to Serbia when it's in trouble, as it did in the Yugoslav War, as it did. during the pandemic, as it did to periods of economic crisis. And they were very careful to say that Serbia has done the same with China, that the Serbian nation has repeatedly shown its friendship towards China. It has backed China in all kinds of conflicts that China has been involved in, and, of course, against Taiwan, over Taiwan and other things. So a very strong relationship between China and Serbia. And China may be very clear that it's going to invest in Serbia.

It's going to help to support Serbia's economy. Serbia, not without friends. It doesn't have to tilt to the West. It doesn't have to be involved with the EU. China is there. It's a friend. It's got deep pockets. It's got all the things that Serbia needs to prosper.

And that's the message that Xi Jinping was coming with. And he's made exactly the same message. In Hungary, you go to the Chinese media again. There again, talking about the friendship between Hungary and China. They are interestingly enough, careful to mention that the political orientation, of the two governments are completely different. Xi Jinping, as we forget, is a communist. He's the general secretary of the Communist Party of China.

Viktor Orban, as we know, is a very strong anti-communist political dissident during the period of communist rule in Hungary. and yet despite that the two leaders Orban and C like each other, they get on, they work together well. China also interested in investing heavily in Hungary and the two leaders announce a strategic partnership. And we've come to understand what strategic partnerships mean. They're not quite alliances, but there are a lot more than just being. friendly, friendly relations. China already has a strategic partnership with Serbia, now Hungary as well. It's becoming clear, exactly as you said, that these two countries are now entering the

multipolar system. They're starting to distance themselves from the EU and NATO centre. Hungary, of course, is still an EU and NATO state. Serbia is not. but the drift is clear. And all of this, preparatory to the next big meeting that Xi Jinping is going to have, which is with Putin and Moscow. Yeah, Orban said, now we are living in a multipolar world order. And one of the pillars of this new world order is the People's Republic of China, the country that is now setting the course of the world economy and world politics. And he said that was Xi Jinping standing right next to me?

My question to you is that Orban and Vuchich, both of the leaders, whatever you may think of them, they are definitely not dumb. They're very, very smart, very clever leaders, very capable leaders. They would not be having this meeting with China. They would not be making these types of statements. Orban, who's in the European Union in NATO, would definitely not be making this type of statement if Project Ukraine was not working in Russia's favor, if the multipolar world was collapsing, if Bricks was collapsing, obviously things are moving in the other direction,

and Vuchich knows it, and Orban definitely knows it. Absolutely. You're absolutely correct. what is now happening in effect is the Chinese influence and the influence of the Briggs is starting to extend into Europe itself. Before long, Serbs, Serbia will actually, I suspect, they face with a choice, either continuing with EU integration, which I think is becoming less and less popular in Serbia, or perhaps even considering membership of the Bricks. Just saying. Now, with Hungary, it's more complicated because Orban has inherited a structure whereby Hungary is already a member of both NATO and the EU. But we've seen now how uncomfortable this whole relationship is.

And, well, here we have a leader of a NATO-EU country talking about, you know, the multipolar order, talking about the People's Republic of China, it's a leader in it. This is not going to be welcome language in Brussels or in Washington especially. But Orban is prepared to do it. And as he rightly said, he can see where the sun is rising and where it's setting.

I mean, he understood that if he was going to make that statement, he is going to get a lot of pushback. And I'm saying that Kylie is going to get pushback from Ursula, but more importantly, from the United States and from Blinken and these types. And Sullivan, I mean, they're going to be horrified reading the statements that are by and made. They're going to be absolutely furious. But China is increasingly powerful. It's increasingly confident.

Its economy, by the way, is also in an upswing. I mean, all the business about the great Chinese crisis that we were hearing about, all that has melted away. Now we've been told that on the contrary, China has this enormous overcapacity. That's the real problem, not that it's about to collapse, but it's in some ways too strong. So China also very self-confident. Xi Jinping also very, very self-confident. I think he's gradually come to realize, as the Chinese leadership has done, that building a relationship with the EU is a loss cause.

You're just wasting your time trying it. I mean, he has to go through the motions. He doesn't want to turn up in Europe and not visit a major European capital, as I said. So he goes to Paris rather than Berlin, interestingly. But the fact is he did his real business in Belgrade and Budapest. He wants to build bridges with important European countries, which they are, by the way. and an extent the multipolar system into Europe itself. Yeah, so a final question. Serbia is number one trade partners, the European Union, obviously.

It's number two, trade partner is China. Serbia without Hungary, I would imagine, would have difficulty saying no to. to the European Union and going full into bricks. But with Hungary having a strategic partnership with China and having this partner in Europe, this neighbor, also looking east, I imagine that does open the way for Serbia to tilt more towards bricks. And what may really change the dynamics of all of this is what could possibly happen with the geography in Ukraine.

Absolutely. Because that could upend everything and things could be looking very beneficial for Serbia, which up until today has been completely locked in, surrounded by the European Union. You're absolutely right. If Hungary,

if the Hungarian Serb relationship continues, which there's no reason to think that it won't. And if the war in Ukraine continues in its present trajectory, and there's no reason to think that's going to change either, being realistic about it, then Serbia is going to have a land bridge all the way to China, and the EU encirclement of Serbia will be broken. And that will have a huge effect, by the way. It won't just have an economic effect. It will also have a geopolitical effect. It will mean that these NATO protectors

that have been created around Serbia in order to tie it down Macedonia Northern Macedonia, I should correct, we call it, Kosovo, Bosnia. Montenegro? All of those. All of those.

They're going to start to feel extremely vulnerable because, of course, they will be faced with the Serbia that is not only powerful, much more powerful than they are, but now very, very well connected with, you know, trade routes and support at its back and with grievances against them. And the whole balance of power in the Balkans is going to start to shift and shift very significantly. Yeah, I agree. I mean, all these micro-states around Serbia in this area, they're going to start to ask the question, what was it all for?

You know, I mean, the purpose of splitting up was in order to create these states that would eventually surround Serbia and act as a way to get Serbia into NATO or the EU in one form or another, to make Serbia submit. That was the reason for all these microstates to begin with. Yes. But the minute you break that, that access to the east, you break that open. Serbia's got a pathway to the east. All these microstates become effectively useless as far as being targeted towards Serbia. They're not just useless. They become a burden on the West because they can't function by themselves.

I mean, I don't mean that, you know, they're not. defendable by themselves. They're not, but I mean, economically, they can't function by themselves. Of course, Bosnia is profoundly dysfunctional and deeply divided. So, by the way, is Montenegro, as we know. There's conflicts in Macedonia, and of course, Kosovo is another whole set of problems as well. So what is the West going to do, sort of try to defend these places? It's another... it would be another massive imperial overreach that would become again another bottomless commitment of resources, ultimately American resources to shore up a failing status quo. All right. We will end it there. The durand. dot lopos.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, bitch shoot, telegram, rock, fan, and Twitter X, and go to the Durad shop. Pick up some limited edition merch. the link is in the description box down below. Take care.