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Convention speech: Our relationship with China needs to change

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This is a translation of a speech I gave at the 2023 convention of the Finnish Green Party. The original is available here. Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine has concretely highlighted what excessive dependence on authoritarian states leads to. In a short time, both Finland and the EU had to completely rebuild their Russia policy, and admit to their their previous naive approach towards Russia. Considering how quickly that message seems to have gotten across, at least one question arises for me: Why are we deliberately repeating the same mistakes regarding China? One example of this quite literally hits close to home: there are plans to built a major concentration of battery manufacturing plants in my hometown of Kotka and its surrounding areas, largely to be built with Chinese money. Despite criticism, local decision-makers have mainly focused on the economic effects of the project, while simultaneously downplaying the risks related to China. However, after Russia started its ...
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UN Day and Problems with the UN.

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Translation of a Finnish blog post. Original one available here. UN day was was observed on the 24th of October. Through out the day I saw multiple posts made on the topic which got me thinking about my own, somewhat contradictory views on the UN.  The stated goal of the UN is to uphold international peace, security, justice and human rights. These are all goals that I fully support. We're talking about an ambitious project and all of us should be on board with it. That being said, has the UN actually delivered? Let's answer the question with an example: my home country of Finland was recently elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council. In short, the Council's job is to promote human rights via, what's effectively a form of peer review, meaning countries monitor each other and give recommendations of how to improve their human rights situation. On its own a fantastic idea, until you remember that the council also includes China and Russia as members. At this mom...
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The Greens, Cannabis and Manifactured Outrage

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Translation of a Finnish blog post. Original available here Some of you are probably aware that recently the Finnish Greens voted in favor of an initiative calling for cannabis legalization at their party conference. The vote was close, 183 to 181. As expected, this caused some intense debate, if you can actually call it that. As somebody who was there, I guess I have to say something. Because ultimately, the idea is not as radical as it's portrayed as. The decision means that the Finnish Greens are the first party in parliament to support cannabis legalization. Obviously this is a historic moment, but ultimately we're not alone with this demand. Before the Greens three minor parties have already called for legalization. Or what about political youth groups? The Green Party Youth, which I represented at the convention, have been calling for legalization for years. From other parties in parliament, the youth wings for the National Coalition and the Left Alliance are calling for ...
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Convention Speech: Hong Kong National Security Law

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Translation of my speech at the Finnish Green Party's convention on the 12th of September 2021. Finnish version available here Hong Kong is a former British colony, which in 1997 was handed over to China. Before the handover, the countries agreed on a special arrangement which was meant to secure civil liberties for Hongkongers for at least 50 years. In the Summer of 2020, China betrayed those promises by legislating the so called "National security law". For Hong Kong's democracy movement, effects of the national security law have been catastrophic: since the law was enacted, every single democrat has been kicked out, or pressured to resign from the regional legislature. Around 30 organizations, which includes political parties and trade unions. have shut down operations. At the moment of writing this 146 people have been arrested and 84 people prosecuted under the national security law. Apart from this, the Hong Kong police has issued arrest warrants on at least 10...
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Catastrophe in Aghanistan

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Translations of a Finnish blog post. Link here Well, i's happening. At the moment of writing this, the extremist group Taliban is besieging Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan and based on the most recent information is negotiating about transfer of power with the Afghani government. The whole situation feels absurd. The war in Afghanistan started in 2001, when I was only four years old. In other words, the war has been ongoing for most of my life. And when the US decides to withdraw it's troops from the country, it only takes few weeks for the Taliban to take over. I have to ask, what exactly did we achieve here?  The situation in Afghanistan is a perfect example of US foreign policy failures. The Taliban is a self created enemy: the fear of Communism during the Cold War drove the US to support local jihadists in their fight against the pro-Soviet government. But when the common enemy was defeated, the weapons were turned against the US. And once again, it's the average Afgh...
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Full support to Lithuania

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This is a translations of a blog post from my Finnish blog. Link here . A diplomatic dispute between China and Lithuania seems to be brewing. Lithuania recently announced plans to open a representative office in Taiwan, while Taiwan is opening it's own office in Lithuania. For those who don't know, these offices act as de facto embassies due to Taiwan's interesting place in international politics. On it's own this is nothing special. After all, Finland and Taiwan have a similar arrangement between them. It's the name of this representative office that is the problem: while Taiwan's representative office in Finland uses the name ”Taipei Representative Office”, the name for the office that is about to be opened in Lithuania uses the name "Taiwan". And since China considers Taiwan as it's own territory, even the name "Taiwan" in any official capacity is treated as a threat.  Now China has actually recalled their ambassador to Lithuania and ...
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Let's Talk About Communism

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The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution about Hong Kong which among other things called for sanctions against Chinese officials. The resolution was adopted with quite a clear margin, with 578 in favor, 29 against and 73 abstentions. The interesting part is that the abstentions and against votes largely came from two political groups on the opposite sides of the political spectrum: ID and GUE/NGL Far rights and the far left agreeing on something? Seems like the horseshoe theory is on to something.  This same divide can be seen in Finnish politics as well. I previously posted about the case of two right wing MP's getting exposed with questionable China ties . However, questionable China ties can be seen on the Finnish left as well, especially in minor parties, namely the Communist Party of Finland (SKP) and the Communist Workers Party (KTP).   The SKP is generally described as more moderate than the KTP but I don't think this is the case. An example of this is...
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