ハンガリーに中国名門大のキャンパス建設「誰も賛成してない」

【ブダペストＡＦＰ＝時事】ハンガリーの首都ブダペストに、中国有数のエリート大学である復旦大学のキャンパスを建設する計画が進んでいる。（写真はハンガリーの首都ブダペストで、中国の復旦大学のキャンパス建設が予定されている工場跡地で取材に応じる地元行政区のバラニ・クリスティーナ区長）
　「地元の誰も賛成していないのに、マンモス大学を造ろうとしている」
　建設予定地のドナウ川沿いの工場跡地で、地元行政区のバラニ・クリスティーナ区長はＡＦＰにこう述べ、オルバン・ビクトル首相率いる政府との対決姿勢を鮮明にした。
　今は荒れ放題のこの場所に、上海の復旦大学が欧州初のキャンパスを２０２４年までに開設する計画は、ハンガリー政府と復旦大学側とが先週交わした合意によって明らかになった。施設の延べ床面積は５０万平方メートルに及ぶ。
　だが、この一大プロジェクトは、欧州連合（ＥＵ）と距離を取り、中国やロシアに接近するオルバン政権の外交姿勢や対中債務の急増に対する不安をかき立てている。
　調査報道サイト「ディレクト３６」に先月流出した内部文書によると、建設費はハンガリーの高等教育予算１年分を上回る推計１５億ユーロ（約２０００億円）で、中国はうち１３億ユーロ（約１７００億円）を融資する計画だ。
　元請け業者は中国の建設会社に決定したが、入札は実施されなかったという。
　「それを知ってショックを受けた。何もかも不透明だ。誰にも相談はなかった」と、バラニ区長は不満をあらわにした。年内に住民投票を実施し、地元行政区として建設予定地を国に引き渡すべきかどうか、市民の判断を問う方針だ。

■経済的主権の喪失
　復旦大学のキャンパス建設は、オルバン政権が掲げる「東方開放政策」の一環だ。
　この政策をめぐっては、地政学的バランスを考慮したものだとの分析がある一方、ＥＵと北大西洋条約機構（ＮＡＴＯ）の内側に中国とロシアを招き入れる「トロイの木馬」と化しているとオルバン首相を批判する声もある。
　ハンガリーはＥＵで唯一、中国製とロシア製の新型コロナウイルスワクチンを利用している。また、国内唯一の原子力発電所では、ロシアの国営エネルギー企業ロスアトムが巨額のロシアマネーを使って設備を拡張しつつある。
　大容量通信規格５Ｇの整備に、中国の通信機器大手、華為技術（ファーウェイ）を関わらせるのは安全保障上のリスクになるとの米国の懸念も、オルバン政権は一蹴している。
　首都ブダペストと隣国セルビアの首都ベオグラードを結ぶ高速鉄道の建設プロジェクトも、中国の巨大経済圏構想「一帯一路」の一環として、中国の融資２０億ユーロ（約２６００億円）で費用の大半を賄う。
　しかし、ブダペスト在住のアナリスト、クレコ・ペーテル氏は、復旦大学のキャンパス建設を中国人労働者が担い、ハンガリーの納税者がその費用を支払う計画は、「ハンガリーには何らメリットがないように見える」と指摘。中国からの融資は「経済的主権の喪失」であり、「対中債務がかさみつつあり、危険だ」とＡＦＰに語った。
　復旦大学が２０１９年に大学憲章から「思想の自由」への言及を削除したことも、ハンガリーの学問の自由をめぐる懸念を拡大させている。
　地元出身のリベラル派の米富豪ジョージ・ソロス氏がブダペストに創立した中央ヨーロッパ大学（ＣＥＵ）は２０１８年、オルバン政権との法廷闘争の末、拠点をオーストリアのウィーンに移した。大学側は「追い出された」と主張している。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/05/12-13:41）

Standing on the proposed new home in Budapest of a top Chinese university, the local district mayor Krisztina Baranyi is squaring up for a stand-off with powerful Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government.
They want to plant a giga-university without anyone here agreeing to it, Baranyi, a combative independent politician, told AFP at the windswept former industrial site beside the river Danube.
Currently derelict, the area is to house Fudan University's first European campus in a half-million-square-metre (five-million-square-foot) complex by 2024, according to a deal signed between Hungary and the Shanghai-based university's president last week.
But the sprawling project has fed growing unease about Hungary's diplomatic tilt from West to East and its soaring indebtedness to China.
Internal documents leaked to investigative journalism website Direkt36 last month revealed that China is expected to give a 1.3-billion-euro ($1.6-billion) loan to cover most of the estimated 1.5-billion-euro costs.
A Chinese construction firm has also already been earmarked as main contractor without a bidding process, according to the documents.
- 'No plan B' -
I was shocked when I found out. Everything is opaque. No one was consulted, Baranyi complained.
She plans to let local residents have their say on whether the municipality should hand over the site to the state in a referendum later this year.
If local people said 'no', it would surely be a step too far, even for the government, to then infringe the district's ownership rights, she said.
Details of the referendum are yet to be worked out but Baranyi hopes it could emulate the success of a 2017 petition launched by young activists that led to Hungary dropping its expensive bid to host the 2024 Olympics.
Budapest's liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony has also blasted Chinese influence-buying in Hungary and urged Orban not to force projects on the capital against its will.
Until the government fully publishes the contract details, we do not consent to the construction, Karacsony said last week.
However, other than backing the district's referendum drive, city officials privately concede that they have limited powers to block the project, whose cost exceeds Hungary's annual higher education budget.
The government argues that a prestigious outpost of Fudan University, ranked 100th in the Shanghai Ranking, would permit thousands of Hungarian, Chinese and other international students to acquire high-quality diplomas.
It would also fit in with previously agreed plans to build a 10,000-capacity dormitory for Hungarian students at the site, it says.
There is no plan B, said the government minister in charge of the project Laszlo Palkovics last week, adding the campus would be good for Hungary, China and the community.
- 'Lost economic sovereignty' -
Fudan is the latest landmark in Orban's foreign policy of Eastern Opening, which analysts describe as a geopolitical balancing act, while critics portray the nationalist premier as China and Russia's Trojan horse inside the European Union and NATO.
Alone in the EU, Hungary has used Chinese and Russian coronavirus jabs to accelerate its vaccine rollout, one of the fastest in the bloc.
Russia's nuclear agency Rosatom is expanding Hungary's only nuclear power plant with a massive Russian state loan, while Budapest brushes off US fears that Chinese telecoms giant Huawei's involvement in its 5G mobile network rollout can pose national security risks.
Another vast project, a high-speed railway between Budapest and Serbia, part of Beijing's Belt and Road global infrastructure plan to help deliver Chinese goods to Europe, is also mostly financed by a two-billion-euro Chinese loan.
But with Chinese workers set to build the university campus and Hungarian taxpayers footing the bill it is hard to see any advantage for Hungary in Fudan, a Budapest-based analyst Peter Kreko told AFP.
He said that the loan also meant a loss of economic sovereignty and pointed to Budapest's stated rejection of the EU's coronavirus recovery credit line last week as a signal it preferred debt without strings attached like 'rule-of-law' conditions.
We are becoming extremely indebted to China, and that can be dangerous, Kreko added.
- 'Freedom of thought' deleted -
The courting of Fudan, which deleted references to freedom of thought from its charter in 2019, also compounds rising alarm about academic freedom in Hungary.
Fudan provides China with a foothold to spread its influence in Europe, the US embassy in Budapest warned last week.
The Hungarian parliament, dominated by Orban's Fidesz party, also approved last week the transfer of most state-run universities into lavishly funded pro-government quasi-private foundations.
The foundations should avoid an internationalist globalist approach and focus on national interest and national thinking, Orban said Friday.
In late 2018, the Central European University, founded by liberal US billionaire George Soros, said it was forced out of Budapest to Vienna after a bitter legal dispute with Orban.