Language brings countries together

Through language, different people of the world come to know each other, and this draws them closer. It was through language in Budapest that Vice-Premier Li Keqiang helped forge a closer bond between China and Hungary.

Li wrapped up his two-day visit to Budapest on Tuesday. Before Hungary, he visited Russia, and his next stop is Belgium and the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels.

The visit to Hungary was short, but his agenda was tight and the meetings with his counterparts and interaction with the local people translated into closer bilateral relations and consensus on pragmatic cooperation.

Impressive during the visit was that Li often sought to communicate directly with the high-level Hungarian officials, without interpreters, and in English.

On Monday, as Li was given a tour of Buda Castle by Janos Hovari, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry's deputy state secretary for global affairs, he turned away from his interpreter and spoke with Hovari in English. They talked about the history of buildings and the nearby Szechenyi Chain Bridge, a suspension bridge over the Danube between Buda and Pest that leads to Buda Castle.

Li's deep knowledge of Hungarian culture and history caught Hovari's attention and his easy interaction in English stimulated the conversation.

On Tuesday, during the signing ceremony for seven investment and cooperative agreements between China and Hungary, Li and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban talked to each other in English for about 15 minutes. Standing in the back of the room, I could not hear what was being said, but I noticed they were smiling, gesturing and making frequent eye contact.

Li's fluent English obviously created closeness with his counterparts. During the roughly hourlong welcoming banquet in the Hungarian Parliament at noon on Tuesday, Li and Orban were in high spirits and continued their talks from the morning, almost ignoring the carefully prepared dishes. The topics ranged from the global situation and that of the European Union to governance of a nation amid the European debt crisis.

The talk was so pleasant that, when the scheduled time was finished, Orban invited Li to have coffee on the balcony of the Parliament building, where they could overlook Budapest. They chatted over coffee for more than 20 minutes.

The intimate and cheery talks led to the consensus from both sides on “pragmatic cooperation”. The two nations signed seven cooperative agreements in areas of agriculture, telecommunication and infrastructure. Li said China expects to invest and import more from Hungary.

The enhanced cooperation creates benefits for both. While its exports growth slows down, China is under way for transforming economic growth model to domestic consumption-driven and encourages its companies to invest abroad.

Orban said Hungary is set for opening to the eastward, enhancing the economic and trade relationship with China. This happens to agree completely with what Li proposes. He said China would open market further to central and eastern Europe, including Hungary.

For China, Hungary could provide a platform to expand into the Europe, as Hungary is the center of the Europe. This also explains why Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation, Chinese leading telecommunications solution providers, decide to add investment in Hungary, identifying it as the Europe’s center for logistics and operating maintenance. And comparatively cheap labor cost is another reason.

Besides the official meetings, Li spent considerable time with everyday Hungarians. Right after arriving, he visited the Chinese-Hungarian Bilingual School.

The school, which opened in 2004, teaches students in Chinese and Hungarian and is becoming increasingly popular among Hungarians. Many Hungarian parents send their children to the school to learn more about China and the Chinese.

At the news of Li's arrival, a crowd of parents of the students went to see him.

One of them, Kuti Klemcafina, 43, lived in Hangzhou for five years and said she had deep affection for China. She has five children, and she sends three of them to the school in the hope that they will learn "to love China as I do."

"He is so charming and wise. I like the way he smiles and speaks," she told me after Li made a speech in the school hall.

dingqingfen@chinadaily.com.cn