EVOLVING INTERCONNECTEDNESS BETWEEN CHINA'S OBOR INITIATIVE AND HUNGARY'S EASTERN OPENING POLICY IN A BILATERAL POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

The main aim of our paper is to investigate how successful Hungary has been in aligning its Eastern Opening policy with China's OBOR Initiative. The 2008 financial turmoil with the subsequent global economic downturn and the 2010-2011 European sovereign debt crisis spurred the Hungarian government to launch the Eastern Opening strategy as a cornerstone of its new foreign economic policy strategy in 2012 with the aim of decreasing the country's massive commercial and FDI dependence on the EU-15 and at the same time diversifying its economic relations towards East (mainly Asia), especially China. To realize the Eastern Opening goals, the Hungarian government has established several tools and institutions. In our paper we would like to evaluate the development of Hungarian-Chinese economic relations since the launch of the Eastern Opening policy in 2012 and how the aims of this policy can be widened beyond trade and investment according to the broader perspective represented by the OBOR Initiative e.g. in the field of infrastructure connectivity or financial cooperation. Our investigation to map initial results is based on a bilateral political framework approach.