Hungary’s interior ministry claimed the deal would improve safety in tourist hotspots or during events that attract large numbers of spectators.
But the plan has drawn criticism from those concerned the agreement will be abused by communist China, which has a lengthy record of human rights abuses.
The patrols could be the first step to establishing secret police stations or used to intimidate the overseas Chinese community, they warned.
I had to do a double take on that headline. What the hell, it’s actually real.
Baffling. I read the article but wondering if some kind of rationalization is outlined somewhere else.
Police represent the authority of the state and have a monopoly on violence. They only “earn” that monopoly because ostensibly they have been authorized democratically by the people. (Much more could be said about that) Chinese police in Hungary do not represent Hungarian people and so they should not be in any kind of position of authority.
“They only “earn” that monopoly because ostensibly they have been authorized democratically by the people.”
Well, that might be the social framework fir a democracy. But we are talking about Hungary here.
Why does China need to extend its police to patrol globally exactly?
China wants to maintain full control of anyone who it views as it’s citizens (importantly distinct from actual citizens), regardless of whether or not they’re in China, and regardless of whether or not they have PRC citizenship or not.
Most nations would object to this, especially if it involves the PRC exerting jurisdiction within the host country’s borders, potentially on the host country’s citizens, and almost certainly on the host country’s legal residents. Orban, evidently, does not.
I guess I was wrong about Orbán. He seemed to want his boots licked, turns out he wants to be a bootlicker. Go figure.
It’s like the human centipede, but it’s a circle, Putler, Orban, Xi.
Looks like the EU parliament needs to say “no fucking way”…so maybe in 5-10 years Hungary will get a sternly written letter.
But hey, I phones have to have USB-Cs so…
…yeah
USB-C on phones is a good thing. The reason why the USB-C requirement passed while pressure on the Hungarian government fails is not because more people worked on the USB-C directive than work on strategies to pressure the Hungarian government. Rather there were considerably fewer people working against the USB-C directive.
Sketchy af, but my opinion will depend alot on what exactly will be done.
In certain places in Germany (e.g. Nürnberg train station) the US military police is patrolling (or used to patrol) together with regular German police, because there have been incidents in the past of US army personnel not listening to german police.
What a weird solution to a foreign power soldiers not obeying local law enforcement. Just lock them up, or let the German soldiers handle it.
The German military is not allowed to act inside the country. Only exception is natural disaster relief. We have special police forces for high stakes situations like terrorist attacks.
But when there is a fight between 20 well trained soldiers who just don’t give a fuck, what is the police supposed to do? Besides, the army police has more leverage and can influence the soldiers career and stuff as well.
It’s not an ideal solution. Having a foreign entity project power - yikes! (even if it is just for their own subjects) but it’s a solution.
Seems pretty elegant to me. Don’t U.S. troops have a whole bunch of additional military laws? This way local police don’t need to learn all of that nonsense and the U.S. military get to hold their people to that higher standard while also helping each other out. Probably cheaper and better results for both?
In this particular case it was less about higher standards and more about not listening to local law enforcement.
Are there incidents of overseas Chinese not listening to the Hungarian police? If not, what’s the justification here?
I don’t know, I’m just saying there could be actual reasons for it and it’s not a bad thing per se.
Edit: the article says the justification is
helping to improve communication between the citizens and the authorities of the two countries
There are a ton of Chinese speakers. I can imagine small tourist spots getting overwhelmed during Chinese school holidays. Having translators with some authority can greatly increase crowd control.
