How China’s United Front extends its influence in Hungary

Kamilla Marton (Direkt36)
Photo: Benko Vivien Cher / Prime Minister’s Press Office 2024-10-05

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United Front, the Chinese Communist Party’s intelligence-linked agency has been exposed for trying to influence local politics in several countries. United Front’s extensive network also reaches to Hungary.

Last November, a high-ranking Chinese delegation arrived at a seemingly insignificant department store on Kőbányai Road in Budapest. The store sells Chinese goods and is owned by family relatives of the president of the Hungarian Chinese Women’s Association.

Ling Sheng Chin was there to meet the delegation, elegantly dressed alongside other members of the women’s association. They provided entertainment: a cultural program in which they sang the patriotic Chinese song “My Motherland and I” in snow-white dresses. They later danced on stage in traditional costumes.

But the delegation was not there to shop or watch a cultural show. The delegation, which later met with China’s ambassador to Hungary, came from a unit of the Chinese Communist Party, one that plays a key role in increasing the Asian superpower’s global influence. This organization is called the United Front. One of its main tasks is to control key members of the Chinese diaspora and help suppress voices critical of China.

In recent years, authorities in several Western countries have uncovered covert operations, conducted by the United Front, in which individuals and organizations linked to the unit have sought to illegally obtain information and influence local political processes. The US Attorney’s Office recently charged a former New York State official with acting on behalf of China with the help of people connected to the United Front in exchange for money and various valuable gifts. A recent report by the Czech counterintelligence service also specifically names the United Front as having carried out covert operations in the Czech Republic in support of Chinese intelligence operations.

Hungary’s government, which is increasingly close to China, is not known to have ever taken action against the United Front. However, Direkt36, as part of an international investigative journalism project, can reveal that this unit of the Chinese Communist Party is also working extensively in Hungary. For example, during the recent political controversy surrounding Shanghai-based Fudan University’s planned campus in Budapest, Chinese organizations linked to the United Front in Hungary tried to persuade the district mayor of the capital’s ninth district to act in China’s interests. There are also indications that the United Front played a role in organizing activities around the May visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure he receives a positive welcome in public.

The international project behind these findings was led by the investigative crew of Swedish TV4 in cooperation with Safeguard Defenders, an NGO specializing in human rights abuses in Asia, as well as several other European newsrooms. As part of the investigation, we examined a document leaked to an online hacker forum that contained the names of more than two thousand individuals who run Chinese associations abroad – and who allegedly had links to the United Front.

For a significant number of the names on the list, journalists and researchers were able to use public sources to confirm that individuals and organizations are indeed linked to this unit of the Chinese Communist Party. In Hungary, 56 such individuals and 26 associations were identified, including organizations engaging in business, political and cultural activities. Among those identified were a businessman who owns several department stores, other entrepreneurs and journalists and staff of Chinese-language newspapers operating in Hungary.

Official government authorities, the Chinese Embassy in Budapest and the various associations contacted did not respond to Direkt36’s request for comment.

The magic weapon

The United Front has a long history. It was already active in the first half of the 20th century when the Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, fought for control of China. Mao even described the United Front as a “magic weapon,” the main purpose of which at the time was to fight individuals and organizations considered to be internal enemies.

The organization fell into obscurity for decades but was reborn under the current president, Xi Jinping. In 2013, the United Front even published a book titled “Xi Zhongxun on the United Front,” which contained 109 speeches, articles and other writings by the current president’s father.

Xi Jinping has made significant improvements to the United Front. According to research by an Australian National University, the Chinese president has added 40,000 cadres to the organization, merged several offices under its authority and given the Communist Party more direct influence in its day-to-day operations. “The group, which had an estimated budget of $2.6 billion as recently as 2019, serves as the party’s intelligence agency,” reads a recent New York Times article about the organization.

Additionally, under Xi, the United Front began conducting activities outside of China. It has been active in monitoring Chinese communities abroad, mobilizing them in service of the party’s goals and controlling foreign Chinese-language media.

According to a US State Department report from last year, the United Front systematically cooperates with Chinese intelligence services to achieve its goals.

China’s Ministry of State Security and the United Front have cooperated at various levels to suppress or threaten Beijing’s critics abroad, said the report.

As an example of such cooperation, the report cited regular meetings between officials from the two organizations during the 2019-20 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

There is growing evidence that the United Front is active in many Western countries.

A few years ago, the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders, which focuses on human rights abuses in Asia, revealed that China, with the help of the United Front, operates at least 102 so-called administrative centers worldwide. According to Safeguard Defenders, these centers are essentially operating as illegal police stations, bypassing local authorities and violating the sovereignty of the countries in which they’re stationed. According to their research, these centers have also been secretly monitoring Chinese residents and using a variety of methods to force them to return to China. The report offers examples of Chinese residents being persuaded to return home by staff at these local centers from Serbia, France and Spain.

According to a US Justice Department complaint from last year, such illegal police stations have also operated in the United States. Based on an FBI agent’s testimony, Lu Jianwang was tasked by a United Front officer to set up the facility during a visit to China.

The official reason for the facility was to help Chinese compatriots stranded abroad during the pandemic return home. But Lu and his Chinese-affiliated associations also instructed by Chinese officials to locate certain Chinese people living in the United States. One such person was reported as having committed fraud in China and then fled the country illegally. “Please see if there is any way to deport [name] back to China, thanks,” Lu was instructed. According to the Justice Department complaint and affidavit, this eventually led to regular harassment and threats against the person in question and his family.

According to the FBI agent’s statement, the New York-based center was called the Fuzhou Overseas Police Station, and none of the people who worked there reported to US officials that they were working on behalf of the Chinese government in the United States.

“Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York, USA.” The FPSSOC Principals in the picture include, among others, the defendants LU JIANWANG and CHEN JINPING, located in the third-from-right and second-from-right positions.

China denies that it operates police stations abroad. They claim that the facilities are administrative centers staffed by volunteers to help Chinese people living abroad with matters such as renewing driving licenses and other identity documents. However, even if they only act in the capacity that the Chinese government claims, they would still be violating international law. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which has been adopted worldwide, including by China, clearly states that only those who have been appointed and approved by both countries can receive consular tasks. It is therefore illegal for these offices to operate without the consent of the host country.

Businessmen and journalists in the United Front network

Two years ago, Safeguard Defenders identified two sites in Hungary that they believed were operating as illegal police stations. They were allegedly on Golgota Road and Cserkesz Street in Budapest.

After the publication of the report, Márton Tompos, MP for (and current president of) the liberal Momentum opposition party visited these stations, and even found the official blue sign of the Qingtian police on the Golgota Road building, alongside the writing of Hungarian Qingtian Association. At the time, the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior denied the existence of Chinese police stations in Hungary. After Tompos’s visit, the sign of the Qingtian police was quickly removed from the building.

In the summer of 2024, Direkt36 journalists also visited these facilities. When we arrived at the alleged police station on Golgota Road, we saw an abandoned looking building equipped with cameras. The Józsefváros Market – a hub of Chinese trade in Budapest – is located behind the building, so we took a look at what was visible from the side of the market. There were no signs for the Chinese police, but above the entrance to the building on the market side, there were large signs with the names of three Chinese associations.

Signs of the Association of Chinese Social Organizations in Hungary, the Association of Fujian Merchants in Hungary and the Hungarian Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China on the building of the alleged Golgota Road police station. Source: Direkt36

These associations are all linked to the United Front.

One of them is the Hungarian Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, which provides a forum for those who oppose any “China-dividing activities” such as Taiwanese independence. Among their principles is that their members must abide not only by the laws of the host country but also by the constitution and regulations of the People’s Republic of China.

In 2022, the president of the association attended a conference of a United Front sub-organization, which adopted a declaration rejecting Taiwan’s independence.

The signing associations claim that the US and Taiwanese “separatists” aim to control China through Taiwan.

“In this regard, our Hungarian Chinese community has issued a statement supporting the Chinese government’s solemn position,” the association’s president said under a huge red banner.

The conference was also attended by the leaders of 18 other Chinese organizations in Hungary.

The Hungarian Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China is registered at Ernő Street in the ninth district of Budapest, but when we arrived at this address, Direkt36 found only a sign for a Hungarian-Chinese travel agency that appeared to be closed. The representative of the association was contacted by email, but did not respond to Direkt36’s questions.

Direkt36 has identified nearly thirty Chinese organizations operating in Hungary with leaders who have links to the United Front. These leaders receive delegations from United Front sub-units; are invited to state ceremonies in China; and may also be present at political conferences attended by members of the United Front and China’s highest-ranking politicians. One such event was a conference hosted for Chinese associations abroad, which welcomed several Hungarian organizations and was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Such conferences can also lead to business agreements. For example, in 2019, Cao He Ping, an influential businessman living in Hungary who owns several Skála department stores, signed an international trade cooperation agreement on traditional Chinese medicine in Beijing at a conference. Cao has even more direct links with the United Front: A report on a Chinese government website mentions Cao as a board member of a United Front sub-organization. That association, which is involved in international exchange programs, aims to strengthen the national identity of Chinese youth living abroad and increase their loyalty to the motherland.

Direkt36 has previously reported that Cao is also the president of a Chinese-Hungarian association, events of which are regularly attended by Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and in which Lajos Oláh, MP of the Democratic Coalition opposition party holds a leading position. The Great Wall Hungarian-Chinese Friendship Association has initiated an award for people who have done a lot for Sino-Hungarian relations. Former Socialist Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy is one past recipient.

Cao He Ping did not respond to Direkt36’s request for comment. However, one of his associates told Direkt36 that the businessman is in China to attend celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

There are also some Chinese people in Hungary with links to the United Front who work in the media.

Members of the Chinese-language press working abroad are not only correspondents but also guests at events organized by agencies under the United Front. One such event was a media forum in China, which was organized to communicate the Chinese Communist Party’s instructions to editors of Chinese press abroad. At the event, media staff were encouraged to publish articles favorable to China. A declaration to this effect was signed by the participants. Eight editors and newspaper directors from Hungary attended the event, many of them members of local Chinese associations.

Among them was Teng Wei Jie, founder and editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language newspaper New Herald, registered on Jegenye Street, Budapest. Teng founded the New Herald in 2000 with his wife, whose name also appeared on the list of people allegedly linked to the United Front leaked to the online hacker forum. The paper mainly covers Chinese and Hungarian economic, cultural and political news, but their social media pages also featured several pieces of Hungarian government propaganda ahead of the elections in June.

For example, a day before the election, they posted a video made by the ruling Fidesz party that they translated to Chinese. In the video, Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, talks about how the country will drift into war if his party does not win.

According to experts, the Chinese Communist Party has been actively involved in the creation of several Chinese associations operating in Hungary.

Pál Nyíri, a professor at Corvinus University in Budapest, said these associations were originally set up by Chinese businessmen who settled abroad but wanted to do business with the Chinese government and party organizations. Those who joined the associations hoped to gain some sort of advantage in, for example, the procurement of goods by greeting Chinese party and state delegations. According to Nyíri, they also saw the potential for social advancement in having their picture taken with such important people.

Sociologist Fanni Beck, whose research includes Chinese families who have moved to Hungary with a residency permit, took a similar view. However, Beck said that the United Front using existing foreign diaspora organizations for its own purposes is a relatively recent development, one that began during Xi’s presidency.

Complying with two countries’ principles

With the Orbán government’s increasingly close ties to China, the Chinese Communist Party has less need for these organizations for political influence in Hungary (compared to in Western countries more critical of China). Even so, local organizations with links to the United Front are trying to shape Hungarian public opinion on China-related issues.

This happened, for example, in the political debate over Fudan University.

Back in 2021, Direkt36 revealed that the Hungarian government had secretly agreed to build the Budapest campus of Shanghai’s Fudan University in the capital’s 9th district with a €1.3 billion (HUF 500 billion) Chinese loan. In protest against the plan, district mayor Krisztina Baranyi named the public spaces surrounding the planned site after communities and leaders oppressed by China. These included the Uyghur Martyrs’ Road and Dalai Lama Road.

Several Chinese associations in Hungary protested against this. Baranyi received a letter signed by the leaders of 16 Chinese associations in Hungary, who claim to be “representatives of the 40,000-strong Chinese community.” They have asked Baranyi to reconsider renaming the streets surrounding the planned Fudan University campus, insisting that doing so offends China’s political views.

“We have to meet the political thinking of the host country, but also the expectations of the mother country, China. Therefore, we felt bad when the names of the streets surrounding the Fudan University area were changed in a way that was incompatible with the political thinking of the motherland,” they wrote in the letter. Ten signatories were from organizations that Direkt36 identified as being linked to the United Front.

The United Front’s activities in Hungary were also visible during the Chinese president’s visit to Hungary in May 2024.

Xi Jinping was greeted by hundreds of flag-waving Chinese people in red caps in Budapest. The Chinese officials who were coordinating the crowd and also wore caps told Hungarian weekly HVG’s correspondent that the embassy had organized the flag waving. However, when the journalist asked attendees about where they got the red caps and flags, several in the crowd named the United Front as the organizer.

Several Chinese associations in Hungary were also involved in organizing the visit in May. Márton Tompos, a member of Hungarian parliament, spotted in reports on the internet that the Hungarian Qingtian Association was responsible for coordinating the “security and welcome team” during Xi’s visit. The articles specifically mentioned the association’s secretary-general, Fan Qiaoxiong, who was quoted in one of the largest Chinese portals as the contact officer of the alleged Golgota Road police station.

During the visit, neither Hungarian authorities nor the Chinese organizers left any room for dissenting opinions. During Xi’s visit, the Tibet Supporter Society (Tibetet Segítő Társaság) planned several days of demonstrations, but the police refused their request to display Tibetan flags along the convoy’s route.

Members of the Society nevertheless tried to demonstrate at several locations – but were met with Chinese resistance. “Wherever we appeared with Tibetan flags, 10 to 15 Chinese appeared within a few minutes, and sometimes they even attacked us,” Tibor Hendrey, the leader of the convoy, told Direkt36. According to Hendrey, on May 10 on Attila Street in the 1st district of Budapest, red-hatted Xi Jinping supporters snatched the Tibetan flag from his hand and hit him several times with sticks. The society has been involved in several demonstrations in the past when high-ranking Chinese politicians came to Hungary, but Hendrey said they had “never been confronted so aggressively” by those who did not sympathize with their views.

The Chinese Embassy in Budapest also helped to draw crowds to the streets to welcome the President. According to a Chinese report, members of the Hungarian-Chinese Women’s Association – the individuals at the beginning of this article who welcomed a delegation from the United Front sub-unit – carried out the “orders of the embassy leaders to do the work of the welcoming team” at Buda Castle.

A Chinese man, who asked to remain anonymous and has lived in Hungary for nearly ten years, told Direkt36 that, on April 16, he received a phone call from a friend who “does not work for the embassy but has close ties to them” asking him to join the welcoming of Xi Jinping in Budapest. The call came a week before Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás officially announced the Chinese president’s visit. The man asked if he could get more information about the visit first, to which his acquaintance replied that “he couldn’t send anything in writing because that would be evidence.”

Sociologist Fanni Beck, who is in contact with several Chinese people living in Budapest, told Direkt36 that one of her acquaintances was called by someone who introduced themselves as a person working for the embassy. The person also offered money to Beck’s acquaintance to attend the event, but they refused the offer.

Beck stressed that it is not at all common for Chinese people living in Hungary to participate in the activities of the United Front. “The people I meet come here because they don’t like the Chinese system. They avoid these associations as far as possible,” the sociologist said.

Szabolcs Panyi contributed to this article.

Kamilla Marton

Kamilla is an investigative journalist working for Direkt36.hu. In 2023, she won the annual Transparency-Soma award for best Hungarian investigative journalism together with Zsuzsanna Wirth for her series of articles exposing the hidden situation of hospital-acquired infections. She was a finalist for the European Press Prize in 2024.