Hungarian expert: China not a threat, but an opportunity

Editor's note: As the 24th China-EU Summit convenes on December 7, CGTN caught up with Gladden Pappin, president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, to gain insights into the EU-China relations and its economic significance from a Hungarian perspective. The views expressed in the video are Pappin's own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

CGTN: In the emerging world order that we see and in global governance model, how do you view President Xi Jinping's three global initiatives – the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative?

Gladden Pappin: I think that these are important initiatives that are modelled on a base of economic development. Any initiatives oriented toward economic development and peaceful exchange are good ones.

Hungary views China not as a threat, but as an opportunity. We have to push back against this idea that there's a zero-sum mentality in the world, that the benefit of one always comes at the expense of the other.

Having grown up in the United States, I know why that mentality exists. It is because for a while, the U.S. was the only player, so it feels that any development elsewhere is a threat to it, but it seems that China has a different view of this that there can be shared development.

Obviously, there are a lot of challenges that's going to encounter in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, we've seen that in Europe in some of the departures from the Belt and Road Initiative. Frankly, we have to eventually realize that people can pull out of economic arrangements, but they do so only at their own cost. That costs go up; there's an opportunity cost and industrial development goes down.

We have to find whatever the initiatives are from the East and from the West that are pointing in this more cooperative direction on a strong national basis and pursue those.

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