BEIJING (Reuters) -Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Beijing on Monday after talks on a potential Ukrainian peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that angered some EU leaders.
Orban, whose country just assumed the European Union’s rotating presidency this month, said on his X account he was on a “Peace Mission 3.0”. Chinese state media reported his arrival.
China, which has close ties to Russia, has been trying to enlist countries to join a six-point peace plan it issued with Brazil in May. Orban’s visit comes after he held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv and also went to the Kremlin, a trip that drew a strong rebuke from his allies.
“Appeasement will not stop Putin,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on Friday, following Orban’s meeting with the Russian leader.
Now in China, Orban will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Diaoyutai State Guest house in Beijing, where senior foreign visitors are sometimes received.
“Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s peace mission continues,” Bertalan Havasi, Orban’s press chief, told Hungarian state news agency MTI.
Orban is a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and is the EU leader with the warmest relations with Xi and Putin.
Hungary has also become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with some other EU nations seeking to become less dependent on the world’s second-largest economy.
His trip to China comes days ahead of a NATO summit that will address providing further support to Ukraine.
The China trip also follows the European Commission confirming last week that it will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% on imports of electric vehicles made in China.
(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing and Boldizsar Gyori and Anita Komuves in Budapest; editing by Diane Craft and Himani Sarkar and Miral Fahmy)
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