Diplomat and Author Roger Garside has warned that Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe is calculated to ‘Divide and Disrupt’ the continent.

It is the first time in half a decade that the Communist Party leader has visited Paris, Budapest and Belgrade. 

President Xi will not visit the European Commission in Brussels or Berlin in a seeming snub to the centralised power which could provide a united front in dealing with China while the CCP’s friendly stance to Russia and its war in the Ukraine is feared to be a prelude to defiance of th eWest over Taiwan.

Garside warned that the CCP’s highly subsidised green technology could undermine European industry and that China could use its economic power to buy the support of Belgrade and Budapest – often seen as maverick governments in the context of Eurofederalism. 

As well as building a $3bn high speed railway connecting Budapest with Belgrade (a project which is not expected to see any profit), ‘China has invested $10bn in Serbian infrastructure in return for Belgrade’s support over Taiwan,’ said Garside. He added that “China encourages Hungary in its efforts to disrupt European Unity.”

Railway infrastructure is a white elephant which needs contextualising: the UK’s HS2 project is not expected to cover its £66bn cost either – though Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s visits to Beijing and Moscow – where he respectively met Vladimir Putin and paid his respects at the funeral of Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev, have raised eyebrows in Brussels.

Hungary continues to push ahead with nuclear Power infrastructure largely provided by Russian engineering support.

In Belgrade, Serbian President Aleksander Vučić greeted President Xi proclaiming ‘the sky’s the limit’ for future cooperation between the two countries. 

“The Balkans, and Serbia in particular, have become even more interesting for China now that one branch of the Belt and Road Initiative through Russia and Belarus was effectively cut off with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” Having instructed state workers in Sebia to skip work in order to turn out at greet President Xi, Vučić told journalists: “I told [Xi] that as the leader of a great power he will be met with respect all over the world, but the reverence and love he encounters in our Serbia will not be found anywhere else.”