Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing as a continuation of what he calls "Peace mission 3.0" but Hungary's Western partners have angrily called strictly bilateral initiatives centering around the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The meetings have followed Hungary's assumption of the EU Council presidency on July 1, and EU officials have emphasized that Orban is not representing the bloc.
Orban defended his unannounced visit to China to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict by saying, "#China is a key power in creating the conditions for #peace in the #RussiaUkraineWar," adding, "This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest."
Orban's China trip follows a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 5 and a trip to present a mysterious peace proposal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on July 2.
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The Beijing stopover also comes one day before NATO leaders including Orban gather in Washington for a summit marking the transatlantic military alliance's 75th anniversary with the Western response to Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine high on the agenda.
Xi emerged from the meeting with Orban saying of the Ukrainian war that "The international community should create conditions and provide assistance for the two sides to resume direct dialogue and negotiations."
The Chinese leader has condemned the conflict but diplomatically backed Putin, with whom Xi formed a "no-limits" partnership in the weeks before the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.
"Only when all major powers exert positive energy rather than negative energy can the dawn of a cease-fire in this conflict appear as soon as possible," Xi said.
Chinese state television said in a readout of the meeting with Orban that "The current focus is to abide by the three principles of 'no spillover of the battlefield, no escalation of the war, and no fueling of the flames by all parties' to cool down the situation as soon as possible."
Like both of his previous trips, Orban's China visit has come as a surprise.
Hungary's EU partners have reacted furiously to the seemingly uncoordinated shuttle diplomacy, which Orban on landing in Beijing referred to on social platform X as "Peace mission 3.0."
A day earlier, Germany's Foreign Ministry said it was "astonished" by Hungary's cancellation of a planned foreign ministers' meeting scheduled for Budapest on July 8. It said on July 5 that Brussels and Budapest needed a "serious and honest" discussion following the Putin meeting.
Budapest cited "an unforeseen change" in Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto's calendar in postponing the meeting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
After Orban arrived in Moscow on July 5, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said that "Prime Minister Orban has not received any mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow." He said the visit "takes place, exclusively, in the framework of the bilateral relations between Hungary and Russia."
Orban has acknowledged that the rotating, six-month EU Presidency that Hungary now holds has no authority to represent the bloc in talks or negotiations.
"Even if the rotating EU-Presidency has no mandate to negotiate on behalf of the EU, we cannot sit back and wait for the war to miraculously end," Orban tweeted. "We will serve as an important tool in making the first steps towards #peace. This is what our peace mission is about."
Orban has whipped up fears of an escalating conflict in recent Hungarian elections, seemingly adopted Kremlin talking points, and accused many in the West of warmongering in response to Russia's invasion.
In Kyiv on July 2, Orban presented Zelenskiy with a cease-fire proposal he said was aimed at pausing the fighting. He declined to give details but said he asked Zelenskiy "whether it was possible to take a break, to stop the firing, and then continue the negotiations."
Zelenskiy did not express his opinion on the proposal during the briefing with reporters, but a spokesman for the president said later on July 2 that Zelenskiy gave Orban an opportunity to air his thoughts.
Chinese President Xi visited Hungary in May in the latest sign of growing diplomatic and economic ties between Beijing and Budapest.