The Duran Podcast - Orban diplomacy in China

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Orban diplomacy in China

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Orban's diplomatic effort to broker some sort of a peace deal in Ukraine. He went to Kiev, then he went to Moscow, and then he went to China, and he will now be in the United States, meeting with all the NATO members, may be meeting with with Biden and discussing things with Biden if that's possible, given what's going on with Biden. But maybe he'll meet with Trump while he's in the United States. Who knows? His foreign minister, Siato said that big things are coming this week. So Orban definitely has a vision.

I don't know if you want to say it's a plan, but he has a vision as to how to to put. a peace process forward. In Kiev, he did not get a very good response. In Moscow, I believe he did get a good response. And in China, he got a good response. In the United States, I imagine he's going to be shunned at the NATO meeting. I imagine the Biden camp is not going to want to hear anything about ceasefire and peace. But he will have Trump. If he does meet with Trump and his people, Trump will be very receptive to what Arban has to say. So what are your thoughts? Well, you know, I look at all of this with a sense of relief and what Orban is doing.

And with also a sense that finally, finally, we are seeing somebody in the West do actual diplomacy. Because this is what diplomacy is. You have a conflict. You have two powers, Ukraine and Russia, that are fighting. each other. And he understands and understands very well that this is very bad for Europe. He said, he said as much that it's affecting living standards in Europe, which is absolutely right. He says it's causing devastation and suffering in Ukraine, which is right also. And he is now president of the European Council. And he is doing what ought to have.

been done years and years ago, but which no other European leader seems able to do. So he talks to the two sides, the two sides that are actually fighting, Ukraine and Russia. He hears what each of them has to say. He proposes ideas of his own. And then he goes to the two big stakeholders, China and the United States. And he tries to find out what they are thinking and to see whether a way can be found forward, which is what mediators do, by the way. Mediators don't come with ready-made plans. That's not the way mediation happens. You talk to everybody, you find out what everybody says, you open lines of communication between them, you try to encourage everybody to talk to everyone else and out of that process, if it's handled well, then sometimes an agreement is found.

I've done it myself. I was good at it. And Orban, from the look of it, is absolutely good at it. And he's doing it in the right way. Now, the Europeans are up in arms and furious with him. The Americans, as you absolutely rightly say, the Democrats, the Biden administration, are going to give you the cold shoulder. I am sure I myself am sure that he's going to talk to Donald Trump because Donald Trump who is let's remember

a negotiator somebody who's worked with mediators before he's a deal maker he's even written a book about this you know the art of the deal he understands this even though no one else

in the West seems to do and maybe just possibly after maybe November, more plausibly January, if Trump is indeed elected, we might actually see something happen. I think this is, again, shows great courage, Orban doing all of this, in spite all the deluge of criticism that's been rained on his head, and he's doing it in exactly the right way.

I would almost say the textbook way. that a proper mediator should follow in order to try and seek a solution. I don't myself think this mediation effort is going to succeed because the forces arrayed against it are too strong, but he deserves full marks for trying. Yeah, and you know, you're talking about a November, January timeframe to see any results come out from this mediation. Who knows what's going to be happening in Ukraine,

in. So, yeah, and of course we have the U.S. elections, who knows what's going to happen there as well. So we do have a lot of a lot of unknowns. Do you think that at the NATO meeting, Orban will find some countries more willing now to talk about a ceasefire, to talk about negotiations, to talk about talking to Russia, to acknowledge that they need to talk to Russia? I mean, this is a, it's a big taboo that. that Arban has broken by actually traveling to Moscow and speaking with Putin. And putting it out there on all social media. Everyone saw the photos. Everyone saw the images.

Everyone understood what they discussed. And they went to China, which is also a type, given all of the nasty rhetoric from NATO, now directed at China, he also broke a taboo there as well. I mean, do you think he'll find some receptive ears in NATO from some. some NATO member states with regards to his diplomacy efforts, or do you think he's just going to hit a wall? Maybe some smaller countries. He's going to hit a wall at this NATO summit meeting. I mean, the dominant attitude of the big countries, Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Poland, all of those, Spain, is that they want to actually not only continue the war in Ukraine, but they want to prove it. against Trump. I mean, they want to make it impossible to achieve peace. They want to, you know,

lock in funding and military support for Ukraine in case Trump is elected. And there's now a big article, I think it's in Politico, about how the, you know, the globalist integrationist grouping in Europe are even looking at developing a nuclear deterrential. force for Europe to prepare for, you know, the time when Trump is elected. So that's going to be the dominant, you know, the dominant line that's going to come out of this NATO summit meeting. And the big players are going to be very, very hostile to Orban indeed. they're not going to even really, I think, want to entertain him at all.

But quietly, the doubts are growing. And I think in Italy, the Maloney government is gradually shifting its position. I think it understands perfectly well that Ukraine is losing the war, that it's conscious also of the shifts in Italian public opinion, which have never really been as supportive of project Ukraine, as has been true in some of the other big NATO countries. I think in France, where we just had parliamentary elections, you can spin and talk about these parliamentary elections, an enormous detail.

But note again that the parties that did well in these elections, the national rally and, you know, the dominant faction, or at least the biggest faction, or the most public faction of the new popular front left-wing party movement that's, you know, emerged first. They too are opposed to support for project Ukraine. Melanchon, the leader of the French left, even talks about an alliance with Russia. Just to say, that's his line. So France might start to distance itself from this project. they might be sniffing around looking at this also.

And then you have elections in Austria, which the Freedom Party is likely to win. You have Slovakia, which is already straightforwardly and openly supporting what Orban is doing. So not at this NATO summit meeting. At this NATO summit meeting, as I said, he's going to come up against a wall of opposition. but going forward, the tide is turning in his favor.

And I forgot to mention, of course, Turkey, which is a NATO member state. And Turkey straightforwardly agrees with Orban. Yeah, I agree with you. This NATO summit's going to be very difficult for Obama. But I think he knows that. I think he fully understands that. And that's why he has some more surprises up his sleeve. And I wouldn't be shocked if that surprise is after the NATO summit, a meeting with Trump.

They do get along quite well, Trump and Orban. That would anger the Biden White House. I don't know if it would anger Biden himself, but it would anchor Jake Sullivan and blink it. Yeah. They would be furious about this. But, you know, talking about Orban, one of the most interesting things about Orban, one of his great strengths, is that he gets all this abuse, this abuse and criticism and all that. He doesn't care.

I mean, he doesn't care what Ursula von der Leyen or Kierstahmer or all of these people say about him. It doesn't seem to concern him. And he just goes on doing whatever it is he feels he needs to do. And he carries on unaffected. notice how basically he's ignored all the criticism. I mean, it's not as if he's really bothered to respond to it. He simply says these people are talking nonsense, and I'm just going to go ahead and do what I wish.

And that already makes him different from pretty much every other European leader you can think of. Most of them care massively what the others say about them. Orban doesn't. And that's what makes him strong. It's one of the things that makes him strong. Yeah, he shouldn't care because the reality on the ground is proving him right. It's proving him.

The developments on the ground is proving him correct. Not only on the ground, not only with the conflict, but also the economic situation that's unfolding. It's proving him correct. And it's proving them wrong, all of them. All of them. Exactly. And, of course, outside the West, he is gaining a lot of, respect because he's finally doing that which ought to have been done years ago.

I mean, he's actually engaging in some straightforward classical diplomacy. Diplomacy is diplomacy was once conducted and should be again. Not by the Biden White House, not by EU leaders because these aren't diplomats. I mean, Annalina can't probably even say diplomacy. I mean, you know, Blinken, Lincoln's the worst diplomat I think we've seen in the last 100 years. Only surpassed, only surpassed by Vladimir Zelensky, who is in terms of bad diplomats and illegal on his own. Yeah, but at least he has an excuse. He was a comedian. What does he know about? He could always say, you know, he came out of the comedy world, the acting world.

True. Yeah, Blinkin has no excuse. A final question. This is the second meeting between Orban and Xi Jinping in three months. Yeah. I wonder if they discussed other topics outside of Ukraine. Maybe, I don't know, maybe SCO, maybe Bricks. Who knows? Who knows?

I mean, very likely they did, actually. I'm just throwing it out there. I mean, very likely they did. Notice to Xi Jinping very willing to meet with Orban. the meeting, this whole tour, clearly carefully prepared in advance. He was careful to go to Moscow and Beijing when he knew that both Putin and Xi Jinping would be able to meet him. So, you know, they have gone out of their way to smooth the way for Orban. and obviously Ukraine is partly.

I'm sure it's the main issue, but no doubt they're talking about other things to. Economics, geopolitics, Asian development banks, Eurasian development banks, Eurasian security arrangements, all of those things. Of course they are. All right, we will end the video there, the durand.orgas.com.

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