Win-Win Cooperation Founded upon Equality and Mutual Benefit

--On Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the China-Finland Governmental Trade Agreement

by Ambassador Wang Tongqing

    Seventy years ago, on this very day, the Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Trade at that time, Mr. Lei Renmin, and Finnish Minister Counsellor Helge von Knorring posted to China signed the China-Finland govenmental trade agreement in Beijing. This was the first such agreement signed between the People’s Republic of China and Western countries, thus marking the beginning of China-Finland economic and trade cooperation.

    China-Finland economic and trade cooperation is mostly characterized by equality and mutual benefit. At the start of the trade agreement, it emphasizes that both sides wish to strengthen friendly relations between the countries and promote the development of trade on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.  Over 70 years, Chinese and Finnish traders, generation by generation, went over the difficult times during the Cold War in collaboration and promoted bilateral economic and trade cooperation to new heights, making historic contributions to both countries’ realizing leapfrog development, as well as healthy and stable bilateral relations.

    Through common efforts, currently China-Finland bilateral trade enjoys steady growth, vibrant two-way investment, deeper synergy between strategies and more connectivity. China has become the third largest trading partner and fourth largest destination for overseas investment of Finland, and also its largest partner in Asia for 20 consecutive years. Finland plays an increasingly important role in China’s trade with 5 Nordic countries and 3 Baltic States as the share of its trade with China grew to 15.3% in 2022. The two sides have established multi-level cooperation mechanisms from government to corporation, which ensure that cooperation in areas such as trade and investment, green development, science and innovation, together with connectivity continue to expand, unleashing potential for the future.

    Nowadays, the world is undergoing profound and complicated changes. Against the backdrop of economic globalization, on the one hand, countries rely on each other economically and their interests are highly integrated. On the other hand, problems including imbalance in development, governance dilemma and deficit in fairness have become increasingly evident, and protectionism and unilateralism are reasserting themselves. Especially since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has witnessed the vulnerability and interdependence within human society. We human beings live on the same planet Earth; as a result, in face of turbulent international situation and imminent global challenges, bloc confrontation and practices of decoupling and severing supply chains are definitely toxic, while solidarity, cooperation and interdependence serve as the real antidote. In fact, the reason why the trade relationship between China and Finland has remained resilient and improved in spite of the pandemic is that both sides always firmly support multilateral trading system and true multilateralism, firmly uphold the correct direction of free trade and economic globalization. This also fully demonstrates that countries with different historical and cultural backgrounds, and varied social systems can cooperate in a win-win way. China and Finland successfully did so in the past, and should continue to set up examples in the future.

    As we enter the post-pandemic era, China’s economic and social vitality fully unleashed. China-Finland and China-EU dialogues and cooperation in various areas are recovering quickly. Going forward, China stands ready to deepen practical cooperation across the board with the Finnish side, facilitate two-way trade and investment driven by innovation, establish a new pattern featuring complementary and synchronized development of traditional trade and emerging industries, of big brands and medium to small-sized companies to bring more momentum to China-Finland relations and foster the development of China-EU pragmatic cooperation. China will also strive to promote high-standard opening up, share development opportunities offered by Chinese modernization with Finland and the world, and support Finnish companies to make better use of platforms such as CIIE and CIFTIS for better performance in the Chinese market.