On Tuesday morning, the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs held a roundtable discussion marking the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. While brainstorming, three experts answered questions: Victor Eszterhay, Director of Research at MKI; Sándor Kosáy is Associate Professor at Peter Pazmany Catholic University, and former Hungarian Ambassador to China, and Viktor Friedman is Vice-Rector of Budapest Metropolitan University.
This event became relevant because the Chinese initiative, which was initially known only as the New Silk Road, is ten years old, and through massive infrastructure development, China is building its own systems that cover almost the entire world. Next month, the Belt and Road Forum will be held for the third time in Beijing, where leaders of countries participating in the initiative will meet and discuss the experiences and results so far, and now local Chinese experts have tried the same. Participants reviewed the first decade of the Belt and Road Initiative in a total of five themes.
The first topic was about the quality of the Belt and Road Initiative; Participants in the conversation debated whether this was actually a strategy or just Beijing’s vision for the future.
