Differing Interpretations of the One Belt and One Road Initiative: The Case of Hungary

This paper aims to give a brief and preliminary assessment of Hungarian views on the One Belt and One Road Initiative (BRI). The preliminary nature of the paper derives from the fact that the BRI is still in the making, and it will be for the years to come, thus its framing must constantly change as well. The author intends partly to analyse the media coverage of the BRI in Hungary and partly to evaluate academic papers on the very subject. This evaluation is to be carried out by relying on how events, information and commentaries related to the initiative are represented in the Hungarian media and at the same time, it makes attempts to organize, classify arguments pro and contra, and interpret narratives from the views derived from. The paper only studies Hungarian-language materials published in Hungary, and it does not seek to investigate other Hungarian materials published in the neighbouring countries. One of the reasons for that is that different political environments change the focus of the discussions significantly, in particular in Hungarian communities living in countries like Serbia or Ukraine that are not members of the European Union. The other reason is that traditionally foreign policies have different focuses, f. ex. the Romanian diplomacy has a strong US-orientation, while the Serbian foreign policy is Russia-oriented. In other words, China’s interpretation is less positive than in Hungary since the cultural, political and economic backgrounds are different. In this paper, academic papers will receive special attention since Hungarian pundits and researchers potentially influence Hungarian decision-makers, thus the Hungarian policy. The mapping of Hungarian think-tanks has the goal to show what are the basic elements of critical, supportive commentaries, though the author is aware that being a Hungarian researcher does not make the analysis of the Hungarian academic world easier