The project has been approved by Hungary's right wing government led by PM Viktor Orban, which has close links with the Chinese government. Earlier this month, the country also blocked an EU statement criticising Beijing's treatment of Hong Kong.

On Saturday, demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital to the parliament building against China's Fudan University campus in Budapest.

"Orban and [his right-wing party] Fidesz portray themselves as anti-communists, but in reality the communists are their friends," university student Szonja Radics, who was at the march, told AFP news agency.

Protesters say that the government should direct the funds allocated for the Fudan University project toward the development of the country's existing universities, according to Reuters.

Fudan University campus in Budapest is estimated to cost about $1.8bn (£1.2bn), an amount more than Orban government spent on its entire higher-education system in 2019, said a BBC report.

Some $1.5bn of the cost will be provided by a loan from a Chinese bank, documents obtained by Direkt36, a Hungarian investigative-journalism outlet, showed, stated the BBC report.

The Chinese university is being opposed by nearly two thirds of Hungarians, according to liberal think tank Republikon Institute, the report added.

Mayor of Budapest Gergely Karacsony is also against the project and announced that the streets in the area will be named after the victims of Chinese human rights violations, according to media reports.

Among four new street signs include Uyghur Martyrs' Road to mark Beijing's attitude towards Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, Bishop Xie Shiguang Road, in reference to a persecuted Chinese Catholic priest, Free Hong Kong Road and Dalai Lama Street, according to BBC.

Fudan University is one of China's most reputed universities. The campus in Budapest, which is expected to be completed by 2024, will be the first site in the European Union, it added.