Visit injects fresh vigor into Sino-Finnish ties, expected to stabilize relations with EU

Finnish President Alexander Stubb's four-day visit to China beginning on Monday — the 74th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Finnish diplomatic relations — is expected to inject new vitality into bilateral relations by strengthening their economic ties, deepening pragmatic cooperation, promoting joint ventures in green sectors, and helping improve China-European Union relations.

That Stubb is not only meeting President Xi Jinping, and the heads of the Chinese central government and top legislature, but also representatives of the business community and social sectors indicates the extent to which the two sides hope to expand the bilateral ties.

Being a typical export-oriented economy, Finland stands to gain by deepening cooperation with the world's second-largest economy and superlarge market, not least because the two economies are complementary in terms of their economic structure, trade and technology.

The first Western country to sign an intergovernmental trade deal with China, Finland is China's third-largest trading partner in Scandinavia, while China has been Finland's largest trading partner in Asia for many years. According to Chinese customs data, the bilateral trade volume reached $8.2 billion in 2023. But the importance of Sino-Finnish relations goes much beyond the trade volume.

Finland is a leader in research and development in advanced technology, excelling in fields such as information and communications technology, healthcare and green energy, while China offers a vast market and a formidable manufacturing base, creating a dynamic landscape for economic collaboration. The complementarity between Finland's cutting-edge technology and China's extensive production capacity presents abundant opportunities for bilateral cooperation, as shown in the 2025-29 action plan the two sides signed on Tuesday to enhance their new type of future-oriented partnership.

Despite the rise of protectionism and unilateralism in recent years, it's good to hear Stubb say Finland opposes a new Cold War, advocates for free and open trade, and appreciates the important role China has been playing to promote global peace and common development.

China's top decision-makers can use Stubb's visit to listen to what Finland, as a member of the EU, has to say about China-EU relations, especially about their trade disputes. On his part, the Finnish president can also take advantage of his face-to-face exchanges with Chinese leaders to compare notes on common interest, and understand China's core concerns and demands.

This approach could enhance mutual understanding between not only the two countries but also China and the EU, and prompt the two sides to have more objective expectations from each other when it comes to handling trade disputes and economic relations, particularly when the Beijing-Brussels negotiations on the EU's "anti-subsidy" tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles are at a critical juncture.

In fact, observers expect Stubb's visit to not only add momentum to the steady and sound development of bilateral ties but also contribute to the improvement of China-EU relations at a time of economic and geopolitical turbulence. Known for its strategic autonomy, Finland was among the first Western countries to recognize the People's Republic of China. And thanks to the joint efforts of the two sides, the development of bilateral relations over the years has been sound and stable, contributing to the steady development of relations between China and Europe.

The healthy development of Sino-Finnish ties is a good example of how countries, despite being separated by thousands of kilometers and adopting different political systems, can build a thriving relationship based on their common understanding of some basic principles of international relations such as mutual respect, equality and win-win cooperation. Differences should never be allowed to become the cause of discord between the two countries; instead, they should prompt them to enhance their mutual learning and understanding in order to resolve those differences.

China is willing to share its development opportunities with Finland, strengthen the future-oriented new type of mutually beneficial partnership with the Nordic country, and jointly safeguard free trade and promote peace and stability across the world, while upholding multilateralism.