On October 29, China announced its decision to include Finland in its unilateral visa-free policy. The Chinese government expressed its willingness to further expand cultural exchanges with Finland and welcomed more Finnish individuals to visit China for business, tourism, and study.
The country started offering 15-day visa-free travel to limited nationals in 2023 and has recently expanded to include 18 European nationals. Sebastian entered the country using this new facility in December last year.
The limited-time visa-free travel was supposed to run out at the end of 2024, but the program has been extended through December 31, 2025.
China added Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Portugal, and Slovenia, five EU countries, to the Visa-free eligible countries list on October 15, 2024.
China, Finland set fine example of state-to-state ties, Xi tells Stubb
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan pose for a photo
with visiting Finnish President Alexander Stubb and his wife Suzanne
Innes-Stubb at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 29,
2024. Photo: Xinhua
The President of China announced yesterday that Finland would join this facility shortly.
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.
There are now 18 (19 soon) European countries from which citizens can travel to China visa-free for up to 15 days:
Austria
Belgium
Cyprus
Denmark
+ Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
Source:https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202410/1322087.shtml; https://loyaltylobby.com/2024/10/29/china-expands-visa-free-15-day-travel-to-finnish-natonals-in-november-2024/
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