BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Finnish President Alexander Stubb in Beijing on Tuesday. The two heads of state also witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of education, water conservancy, environmental protection, circular economy and agricultural and food products in the Chinese capital, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Experts believe the meeting will boost cooperation, clear misunderstandings and help find consensus between the two sides, and inject stability to address the challenges and uncertainties faced by Finland and the whole of Europe at the global stage. The experts also expect the meeting to steady recent turbulences in China-EU ties and mitigate the adverse effects of geopolitical thinking within the EU.
During the meeting, Xi noted that Finland was one of the first Western countries to establish diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China and the first Western country to sign an intergovernmental trade agreement with China. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Finland have always enjoyed friendly relations based on mutual respect and trust, setting a fine example of state-to-state relations that transcends historical, cultural and institutional differences, and promotes equal exchanges, Xi said.
“As the world is undergoing accelerated changes unseen in a century and the risks and challenges facing human society are increasing, the future-oriented new-type cooperative partnership between China and Finland holds exceptional value and should be cherished and advanced,” Xi said.
China is willing to work with Finland to strengthen strategic cooperation, carry forward friendly traditions, and further advance this cooperative partnership to better benefit the two countries and peoples and make new contributions to world peace and development, Xi added.
China is willing to further expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges with Finland, and has decided to include Finland in the list of unilateral visa-free countries. China welcomes more Finnish friends to come to the country for business, tourism and study, Xi said. This is the first trip to China by Stubb since he took office, as well as the first by a Finnish head of state in five years after the former president of Finland Sauli Niinistö last visited China in 2019.
“Happening against the backdrop of a complex international landscape, Finland and other European countries – as manifested in the recent frequent visits by several heads of state in Europe to China – hope to boost relations with China so as to address the uncertainties and challenges they are facing,” Yan Shaohua, a research associate professor at the Center for China-Europe Relations, Fudan University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
This visit by the Finnish president can help alleviate misunderstandings and find balance and consensus in areas such as trade, security and climate, Yan said.
The expert believes this meeting between Chinese and Finnish leaders will also help mitigate tensions in the current China-EU relationship, which experienced fluctuations due to issues regarding tariffs on Chinese EVs.
In responding to a question regarding the EU’s planned tariffs on Chinese EVs when meeting with the press in Beijing after his talks with Xi, Stubb said “my worry is that we’re going into a cycle of tariffs, of trade escalation, etc. We need to avoid that. We need to have a level playing field. And this is the ongoing negotiation.”
“Although negotiations around the issue are ongoing and the outcomes remain uncertain, as a country that values green development, Finland hopes to maintain positive partnership with China in areas such as climate change, low-carbon transition, and Arctic governance,” Yan noted.
Finland’s stance in this regard may help mitigate the adverse effects of geopolitical thinking within the EU on China-Europe cooperation, he said, calling on both sides to broaden space for collaboration in green transition without interference from geopolitical factors. –The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
