The Hungarian Self and the Chinese Other in the BRI

Abstract: This study examines the representations of identities of the Hungarian Self and the Chinese Other in the Hungarian official foreign policy discourses surrounding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This research paper uses Lene Hansen’s poststructuralist discourse analysis to examine how Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán represents Hungary’s identity in relation to the Chinese one since 2013 when the agreement on the BRI was signed. The study’s analysis reveals that the Hungarian Self and the Chinese Other have shared more similarities than differences since 2013. Historically, the Chinese Other has been considered radically different and threatening communist Other in relation to the democratic Hungarian Self. However, the representations of identities took a pivotal turn in the early 2010s when Hungary started to glorify China rather than despite it. Ever since then, the Chinese Other has been constituted as an equal in relation to the Hungarian Self and the differences between them have therefore not been radical. The analysis disclosed that the Other was most often described in regional terms, i.e. as the ‘’East’’ and as something that the Hungarian Self wanted to be a part of. Historically, Hungary and China have been constituted as temporally inferior in relation to the West, however, the analysis showed that the East has caught up with the West and that it is the East that will be leading in the future. Finally, by elevating the issue to a moral basis, Hungary presents itself as an ethically driven actor who has two main responsibilities; a responsibility to include the Chinese Other in European businesses and projects as well as an explicit international responsibility to defend traditional values and differences that exist between nations.