The Hungarian government has softened its stance over its plan to build a Chinese university campus in Budapest after tens of thousands rallied against the scheme over the weekend, saying it may hold a public referendum on the matter.

Gergely Gulyas, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said on Sunday night that the proposal to build a campus of Shanghai’s Fudan University in Budapest has not been finalized or included in the city’s planning. “We support the city of Budapest to carry out a referendum to decide whether they want a branch of Fudan University to be built there,” said Gulyas, speaking to the local pro-government news website Mandiner.

Those who oppose Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government are concerned that the new university campus could weaken the country’s education standards while boosting Beijing’s influence in Hungary and the European Union. Some condemn the scheme as “treason” and a plan for “importing an elite school under an authoritarian regime into the country,” according to media reports.

Wang Wenwu, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, reacted to the Hungarian protests by saying international collaboration is beneficial to all parties. He urged the people of Hungary to maintain an objective, reasonable and scientific approach to the collaboration between the two countries and not to politicize normal exchanges between the Chinese and Hungarians.

Tens of thousands of Hungarians protested over the weekend against the plan, whose opponents include Budapest’s liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony and the chief of the ninth district, where the university town is located.

Karacsony told the crowd that he did not want to see Hungarian taxpayers’ money being spent on building an elite Chinese school. He announced that some streets in Budapest would be renamed Free Hong Kong Road and Dalai Lama Street.

The Hungarian government signed a deal with Fudan University in April to build a campus of Shanghai university on a plot of land originally reserved for a dormitory for Hungarian students. The estimated cost, US$1.8 billion, exceeds the Hungarian government’s US$1.3 billion annual spending on tertiary education.

The campus would be the first of its kind in the European Union, covering 500,000 square meters expected to be completed in 2024.

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