China Slams Hungarian Politicians Over 'Free HK Road'

China on Thursday blasted Hungarian politicians as being "beneath contempt" after Budapest renamed streets over human rights flashpoints from Hong Kong to Tibet in protest against a planned branch of a top Chinese university.

The sprawling project for Fudan University's first European campus has fed growing unease about Hungary's diplomatic tilt from West to East and its soaring indebtedness to China.

The four street signs around the planned site now bear names referencing sore topics that draw Beijing criticism abroad for alleged human rights violations.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Thursday accused Hungarian politicians of "hyping up China-related issues and hindering China-Hungary cooperation."

"Such behaviour is beneath contempt," Wang told a regular press briefing.

The street names are "Free Hong Kong Road", "Uyghur Martyrs' Road", "Dalai Lama Road", and "Bishop Xie Shiguang Road" -- named after a persecuted Chinese Catholic priest.

Wang's rebuke followed a call by President Xi Jinping for the mainland to show a softer face abroad and cultivate a "reliable, admirable and respectable image."

The Foreign Ministry routinely decries foreign politicians for not toeing Beijing's line over issues from Taiwan, to investigating the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A currently derelict plot in Budapest is set to house the Fudan campus in a half-million-square-metre (five-million-square-foot) complex by 2024, according to a deal signed between Hungary and the Shanghai-based university's president.

But Budapest's mayor Gergely Karacsony said on Wednesday that "we don't want the elite and private Fudan university here at the expense of Hungarian taxpayers."

The liberal mayor has previously blasted "Chinese influence-buying" in Hungary and urged Prime Minister Viktor Orban to honour a previous pledge not to force projects on the capital against its will.

Opinion polls show a majority of Budapest residents oppose the plan. (AFP)