中文
By Moulik Jahan
Lead: Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's China visit demonstrated how advanced economies can partner with China in a way where both sides offer what they do the best, resisting pressure to reduce business ties.
The official visit of Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo to China from Jan. 25-28 came at a critical juncture, as the global economy undergoes fundamental restructuring. Amid slowing growth, geopolitical fragmentation, and rising protectionism, the visit represented not symbolic diplomacy but a pragmatic recalibration grounded in economic logic.
As China enters the first year of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), Europe confronts questions of competitiveness and strategic autonomy. The China-Finland dialogue offers a revealing case study of how middle-sized advanced economies can engage constructively with the world's second-largest economy through complementarity rather than confrontation.
The state visits of President Xi Jinping in 2017 and President Alexander Stubb in 2024 laid a solid foundation for a future-oriented China-Finland partnership. Building on this groundwork, the Joint Action Plan (2025-2029), signed by the two countries in October 2024, deepens cooperation in innovation, green technology and trade. Orpo's visit provided a further impetus to this momentum, which is crucial for advancing bilateral relations in the coming years.
Why Finland matters: Small population, high economic density
Finland is not a large economy by population, with approximately 5.6 million people, yet its economic density is unusually high. IMF figures indicate that Finland's nominal GDP stood at around $314.72 billion in 2025, while GDP per capita reached about $56,084, firmly placing the country among the world's advanced economies. In purchasing power parity terms, Finland's GDP stood at roughly $372 billion in 2025, reflecting strong domestic purchasing power, advanced services, and high technology intensity.
This structure defines Finland's relevance to China. It is not a mass consumer market competing with China, but a technology, systems and solutions economy that complements China's industrial upgrading. China brings scale, manufacturing depth, capital formation and market size. Finland contributes expertise in precision engineering, green technology, circular economy models, digital governance and industrial software. This asymmetry creates space for cooperation.
Finland's high Human Development Index (HDI), with a 2023 value of 0.948 in the UN's HDI, reflects its advanced social welfare system. At the same time, China's historic success in lifting over 800 million people out of poverty underscores its commitment to people-centered development and shared prosperity. Despite differing political systems and perspectives on human rights, China and Finland prioritize constructive dialogue to bridge gaps and foster mutual understanding.
High-level meetings: Economic diplomacy in action
The Orpo's meetings with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang on Jan. 27 placed economic cooperation at the center of bilateral engagement. President Xi's invitation for Finnish companies to "take a swim in the vast ocean of the Chinese market" was not rhetorical. China today represents a consumer market of over 1.4 billion people, a middle-income population exceeding 500 million, and the world's most comprehensive innovation-driven industrial system.
Li emphasized cooperation in telecommunications, clean technology, specialty vessel construction, urban development and health care — sectors that align with Finland's industrial strengths. The high-level meetings underscored the two countries' shared resolve to place bilateral relations on a more stable, long-term and results-oriented path amid growing global uncertainty.
By aligning Finland's strengths in clean technology, green development and innovation with China's pursuit of high-quality growth in emerging sectors and opening-up, the two sides are translating political trust into practical cooperation that delivers tangible benefits to both peoples.
The two sides signed multiple agreements, covering science, technology, energy, trade, urban development, innovation, green development, digitalization and cultural exchange. These agreements, along with a memorandum of understanding to enhance the China-Finland Innovative Business Cooperation Committee, will translate the high-level consensus into structured, long-term economic cooperation.
Against the backdrop of China's accelerated energy transition toward carbon neutrality by 2060, the China-Finland memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation underscores the growing convergence of development strategies. Enhanced cooperation in clean energy, smart systems, and innovation will transform the shared policy vision into tangible momentum for sustainable growth.
Trade and investment: A relationship built on industry, not geopolitics
The bilateral trade exceeded $8 billion in 2025, while two-way investment stock surpassed $23 billion. More significantly, Finnish companies operate deeply inside the Chinese economy. Over 230 Finnish subsidiaries operate in China, generating more than $16 billion in annual turnover, indicating that Finland's engagement with China is production-based rather than export-only. This matters strategically. Economies embedded at the industrial level tend to prioritize stability and predictability. The relationship is therefore resilient to short-term geopolitical fluctuations.
The business delegation led by Orpo included leading Finnish companies such as Finnair, KONE, Wärtsilä, UPM and Valmet Automotive, representing sectors aligned with China's strategic priorities. Finland's innovation hubs, including Business Finland and the FinChi Innovation Center, connect closely with Chinese clusters like Zhongguancun and the Greater Bay Area, turning political consensus into tangible business outcomes.
Key joint projects like the Guangzhou Nansha Micro-Energy Demonstration Project and Henan's geothermal heating system — which uses Finnish solar thermal technology, fuel cells and high-efficiency heat pumps — showcase successful green cooperation under President Xi's ecological vision.
Sectoral complementarity: Where China and Finland fit together
Green transition and clean energy
Finland is a global leader in energy efficiency, circular economy systems, biomass utilization, and smart heating technologies. Companies such as Wärtsilä, Kemira and Valmet provide industrial-scale solutions rather than consumer products. China, meanwhile, is the world's largest investor in renewable energy, accounting for over 40% of global clean energy investment.
The combination is natural: Finnish technology enhances efficiency; China provides scale and deployment capacity. Demonstration projects in geothermal heating, smart grids and low-carbon urban systems already reflect this synergy.
Finland is rapidly accelerating its transition to electric mobility, aiming to have 700,000 electric vehicles on its roads by 2030. This growing market presents a significant opportunity for Chinese EV companies to expand their presence and competitiveness in Finland's automotive sector.
Forestry and bioeconomy
Finland's forestry sector, represented by UPM, Stora Enso and Metsä Group, leads globally in sustainable forest management and bio-based materials. China, the world's largest producer and consumer of pulp and paper products and a rapidly expanding bio-material market, offers downstream scale. The cooperation supports China's carbon reduction goals while creating long-term growth opportunities for Finnish companies.
Smart manufacturing and urban development
Companies such as KONE (elevators and smart buildings) and Metso (mineral processing and automation) align directly with China's urban upgrading and industrial digitalization agenda. China builds cities; Finland optimizes them. This is the essence of industrial complementarity: China improves quality; Finland expands application.
Food, health and life sciences
Finnish brands such as Valio, Fazer and Planmeca operate in the premium dairy, nutrition and medical equipment markets. China's expanding middle-income group increasingly prioritizes food safety, quality health care and services for older people. China supplies market scale; Finland contributes trust and standards.
Strategic timing: The 15th Five-Year Plan
The significance of Orpo's visit lies not only in what was signed, but also when it occurred. China's 15th Five-Year Plan is expected to emphasize new quality productive forces, green industrial transformation, digital economy upgrades and higher-level opening-up. These priorities align precisely with Finland's economic structure.
This convergence explains why analysts project bilateral trade potential rising toward $20 billion by 2035, driven primarily by technology-intensive sectors rather than traditional goods trade. Building on 75 years of diplomatic relations, these cooperation mechanisms will elevate ties to a new level of high-quality, high-standard partnership, anchored in shared growth, mutual trust and a common vision for prosperity.
China-EU context: Finland as a stabilizing node
Geopolitically, the visit carries a broader meaning. While parts of Europe debate "de-risking," Finland's approach is different. Orpo explicitly reaffirmed support for free trade, World Trade Organization-centered multilateralism and Europe's strategic autonomy — positions that resonate with China's consistent advocacy of an open global economy. China has repeatedly stated that China and Europe are partners, not adversaries.
Finland's engagement reinforces this principle through action rather than rhetoric. Nordic economies — open, innovation-driven, export-oriented — naturally depend on global stability. Their cooperation with China, therefore, acts as a stabilizing anchor in China-EU relations.
People-to-people exchanges and long-term foundations
Economic ties are sustained not only by contracts but by human connections. China's 30-day visa-free policy for Finnish citizens — for business, tourism, family visits or transit — through Dec. 31, 2026, has strengthened business mobility and tourism. China remains Finland's top Asian tourism source market, underscoring the importance of high-quality tourism cooperation.
Finland also hosts one of the largest Chinese student communities in Northern Europe, while cooperation in education, research, the ice and snow economy, and winter sports continues to expand mutual understanding. Such exchanges create long-term confidence that no trade statistics alone can measure.
A visit defined by rational choice
Orpo's visit is significant for China not because of Finland's size, but because its decisions are rational, pragmatic and, crucially, well-timed. In a world increasingly shaped by uncertainty, this engagement reflects economic realism: innovation requires scale, green transition requires cooperation, and competitiveness requires openness.
The visit underscores China's diplomatic philosophy in the new era that true partnerships are grounded in common development objectives rather than ideological conformity, a principle guiding not only China-Finland relations but also China's broader engagement with the EU and Nordic countries.
From Helsinki to Beijing, from the Baltic Sea and the Arctic to the Pacific Rim, China-Finland cooperation demonstrates that in a fragmented world economy, mutual benefit remains not only possible but necessary. The future of globalization will not be written by slogans but by pragmatic choices: quiet, steady and grounded in development logic.
Moulik Jahan is a Bangladeshi independent researcher, freelance columnist and strategic and security affairs analyst.
