Jay Nordlinger is a senior resident fellow at the Renew Democracy Initiative and a contributor at The Next Move
Péter Szijjártó has a new job. He held his former job for 12 years—2014 to 2026. Szijjártó was the foreign minister of Hungary under Viktor Orbán. Now he’s working for BYD, the Chinese automaker.
The US Department of Defense classifies BYD as a Chinese military company, and thereby bars it from getting US defense contracts. The US-based China Labor Watch says that BYD is guilty of using forced labor. In other words, BYD is a classic company of the Chinese Communist Party.
Szijjártó says that he will be “the executive responsible for the group’s external relations and the development of new business lines.” He is not exactly new to BYD, as the Associated Press makes clear:
“While serving in government, Szijjártó was instrumental in securing foreign investments in Hungary from Chinese companies, including his now-employer BYD, which received considerable state subsidies during his tenure.”
BYD opened its first European factory in Hungary and established its European headquarters there.
Péter Magyar, Orbán’s successor as prime minister, gibed, “The only difference from before is that, from now on, Péter Szijjártó will no longer be paid by the Hungarian people for the same ‘work,’ but by his actual employer.”
Szijjártó is not the first official from an EU country to go to work for a tyranny. Gerhard Schroeder went to work for Putin—that is, he signed on with several giant Russian companies. Schroeder had been chancellor of Germany, a Social Democrat.
Karin Kneissl, too, went to work for Putin. She had been foreign minister of Austria, in a populist-Right government. She has lived in Russia since 2023.
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The case of Hungary is especially important to some of us. Viktor Orbán’s government was a darling of the Republican Party and the broader American Right. Old friends of mine made trips to Hungary—political pilgrimages—and a few of them actually moved there, working for Orbán either directly or indirectly.
Mitch McConnell is one of the few Republicans who never fell for Orbán. In 2024, when he was the GOP leader in the Senate, he said, “Hungary’s leaders have cozied up to America’s greatest strategic adversaries”—Russia, China, and Iran. Leaving Iran aside in this article, I will touch on Russia and China.
Orbán’s Hungary was Putin’s closest ally in Europe, if you don’t count Belarus and its dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, who is a junior Putin.
In late 2021, as Russian troops were massing on the Ukrainian border, Foreign Minister Szijjártó received the Order of Friendship from the Kremlin. He earned it, too.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Szijjártó went to Russia 16 times. The first was in July 2022, when Szijjártó went to Moscow to ensure that Russian gas kept flowing to Hungary.
For years, Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, were downright chummy. On March 1, 2024, Szijjártó posted a video to Facebook, showing the two foreign ministers laughing it up. This was especially egregious to some of us, as it was the day of Alexei Navalny’s funeral.
Navalny had been the leader of the Russian opposition, killed in prison.
About three months later, Szijjártó traveled to Belarus. A headline from the AP tells the tale: “Hungary’s Foreign Minister Visits Belarus Despite EU Sanctions, Talks About Expanding Ties.” (For the article, go here.)
Five months after that, Szijjártó again traveled to Belarus, this time for a security conference—a rival to the Munich Security Conference, which is essentially for democracies. The conference in Minsk featured Lavrov and the foreign minister of Bashar Assad’s Syria, in addition to the Hungarian.
Earlier this year, transcripts of phone calls between Budapest and Moscow were leaked. Said Szijjártó to Lavrov, “I’m always at your service.” Said Orbán to Putin, “In any matter where I can be of assistance, I am at your service.”
Putin’s Russia is a murdering, invading machine, and a sworn enemy of the Free West. China is another such enemy, a one-party dictatorship with a gulag, a dictatorship that has crushed Hong Kong, that is threatening Taiwan—that is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
Xi Jinping, the CCP boss, went to Budapest in May 2024. In welcome, Orbán said, “China is one of the pillars of the new world order.” The two governments announced what they called “an all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for the new era.”
In Washington, Senator McConnell was scathing. “Viktor Orbán’s government,” he said, “has given Beijing sweeping law-enforcement authority to hunt dissidents on Hungarian soil.”
How can such a thing be countenanced? Applauded?
In September 2025, Beijing staged a big military parade. Putin was in attendance, and so was Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. So were two officials from the European Union, and only two: Robert Fico, the Putin-friendly prime minister of Slovakia, and Péter Szijjártó.
Five months later, the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, was in Budapest, talking with Szijjártó. Wang’s office put out a statement: “China appreciates Hungary’s friendly policy toward China.” Today, Szijjártó is employed by a Chinese military company.
Allow me to close with a personal note. For many years (27), I was employed by National Review, the magazine founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley Jr., my beloved friend and favorite writer. He died in 2008, at 82.
In 2016, our magazine did a Danube cruise, which had us docked in Budapest. Onboard came Foreign Minister Szijjártó, to speak. I made myself scarce, opting for a walk around town. This was just a private protest—not even a protest but an instinct. The Orbán government had already started to smell, at least according to my nose.
But I don’t think any of us could imagine that Szijjártó would receive the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship. Or be “always” at Lavrov’s “service.” Or be working for the Chinese.
This has been a strange, terrible trip.
Interesting. He also worked for Iran