Elaine Dezenski, senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in the U.S.

hmmm, i wonder if this 'researcher' for a warhawk and Israeli lobbying organisation is trustworthy!

FDD was founded shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In the initial documents filed for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, FDD's stated mission was to "provide education to enhance Israel's image in North America and the public's understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations". Later documents described its mission as "to conduct research and provide education on international terrorism and related issues".

'the Center on Economic and Financial Power' sounds like a ministry from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

i also find this quote amusing:

“Despite the problems for host countries and the large portfolio of failing loans for China, Beijing has still been successful at building influence across authoritarian-leaning regimes, who are eager to follow the Chinese model of single-party state control and high-tech domestic repression,” Dezenski says

the pot calling the kettle black. let me reword this:

"Despite the problems for host countries and the large portfolio of failing loans for the [United States|IMF], [Washington|Davos] has still been successful at building influence across authoritarian-leaning regimes, who are eager to follow the [American|Western|liberal] model of corporate state control and high-tech domestic repression," someone says

Just to push back, a littie, on an easily caricatured picture.

China is looking far less strong economically than it was just a few years ago. In the coming years the Chinese economy will face challenges at least as big as any facing the West. The notion that China will buy up and thus vassalize Europe is not, on balance, very rational. In the 1980s the USA was seriously concerned that Japan would eat up the world. Japan.

The Economist looked into the BRI recently and came to the conclusion that the scheme was essentially economic rather than political - a way to get rid of excess capital in the 2010s, with some potential political benefits on the side. Not the other way round.

None of this justifies Chinese abuses or Hungary's anti-EU antics.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

China’s grand vision of the world-changing BRI may have not been realised, but something else is emerging in its wake — a powerful lever to bend authoritarian-leaning countries toward Chinese interests, Elaine Dezenski writes.

But as the infrastructure and ambitions for the BRI fade, something more dangerous may be rising up to take its place — an authoritarian alliance of security, surveillance, and repression that puts Europe at risk.

But despite the problems for host countries and the large portfolio of failing loans for China, Beijing has still been successful at building influence across authoritarian-leaning regimes, who are eager to follow the Chinese model of single-party state control and high-tech domestic repression.

Hungary, a member of both the European Union and NATO that has been sliding deeper into authoritarianism over the past decade, is a perfect target for Beijing's security-based BRI aspirations — the export of political repression with Chinese characteristics.

Furthering their mutual interest in preventing domestic dissent, Beijing announced new bilateral cooperation between China and Hungary on “security and law enforcement capacity building under the Belt and Road Initiative”.

Hungary’s willingness to enter security arrangements with Xi Jinping and do the bidding of Vladimir Putin while, simultaneously, maintain membership in NATO and the EU is deeply troubling and presents an existential crisis for those alliances.

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