Convergences of “Global Civilization” and “East-West Interconnectivity”: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of State-Promoted Narratives in China and Hungary During the Orbán Era (2010−2026)

In the early 2020s, China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping proposed the tripartite “Global Initiatives”, including the Global Development Initiative (2021), Global Security Initiative (2022), and Global Civilization Initiative (2023). While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has for a number of years put significant efforts into communicating its global visions through the Belt & Road Initiative (2013) and slogans such as the “Community with Shared Future for Humankind” (2018), the recent announcement of the “Global Initiatives” arguably signifies a step toward a new, more direct approach in the CCP’s efforts to reshape the global order. The present discourse analytical chapter focuses on discourses about “civilization”, or wenming, in the context of the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI). As a case study, the paper focuses on China-Hungary relations and the convergences between state-promoted narratives in the two countries. The chapter intends to demonstrate how EU- and NATO-member Hungary’s government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has increasingly adopted elements of the CCP’s “Global Civilization” discourse in recent years and uses these to reinforce its own narratives of “Eastern Opening” and “East-West Interconnectivity” as the Hungarian state’s main strategic aims.