Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is on his third and final stop in Europe on May 9. While in Hungary, he’s expected to announce a string of investments into the nation’s most crucial industries, including electric batteries and critical infrastructure.
On the same day, a Hungarian lawmaker was stopped by a group of Chinese nationals in Budapest as he attempted to put up European Union flags on a bridge. The group claimed they were volunteers for the Chinese embassy, and they wanted to make sure there weren’t any Tibetan or Taiwanese flags being displayed.
“The United Front works with hundreds or thousands of people in Hungary, and they’re all paying attention so that a Tibetan or Taiwanese flag isn’t displayed even by accident. And they do so while there is supposedly freedom of speech in Europe, but not if Winnie the Pooh is here,” Hungarian lawmaker Marton Tompos said.
Mr. Tompos said that the men, all wearing red baseball caps, confronted him to make sure that no flags or symbols referencing Tibet or Taiwan would be hung on the route of Xi’s motorcade.
The CCP’s United Front Works department is known in the West as the CCP’s propaganda department.
As Xi’s visit continues, some pro-Tibet activists took to the streets chanting slogans like “Dictator Xi Jinping.”