The Sovereigntist Zeitgeist Binding Budapest, Beijing, and America First

How can Budapest maintain such close relationships with both Beijing and Washington? Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán Viktor and US President Donald Trump are friends, while Hungary seems also to have the best China ties of all EU member states. Some observers rationalise that Orbán and Trump get along so well because they are both national conservatives, whereas Hungary-China ties must be all about economics. Yet, that is false. Shared ideas about the changing world order are important in the relationship between Budapest and Beijing—and they can play that role also because some of the most fundamental ideas about the political world common to national conservatives in Hungary and the US are espoused by China’s political and academic elites, too. Despite and through their antagonism, Xi’s China and Trump’s America awaken a world of multipolarity and neo-Romantic national particularisms, the order of which grounds in sovereignty. Hence, instead of being caught in a balancing act, Hungarian foreign policy stands firmly in the middle of an emerging sovereigntist Zeitgeist. It is avant-garde, not adrift.