Chinese Puppets Exposed: a Finnish Political Scandal

16th of January 2020, Finnish news magazine Suomen Kuvalehti reported that Mika Niikko and Ville Vähämäki, two members of parliament for the right wing populist Finns Party, had possible ties with the Chinese government that they had not disclosed. Niikko especially has been under scrutiny because of his role as the head of parliaments foreign affairs committee. Despite new developments in the story making the situation worse for the two men, the story has not received enough attention nor has it brought any consequences towards them. This is why I feel responsibility to try and do my part in keeping this story alive.

I will apologize in advance about the lack of English language sources. Quite simply, Finnish politics in general do not attract that much international attention. Additionally, most of the reporting by Suomen Kuvalehti, who originally broke the story is behind a paywall. I'll link the English stories some of the Finnish articles here but you have been warned.

Like I mentioned earlier, this story mostly revolves around Mika Niikko, due to the fact that he has held the chair of parliaments foreign affair committee since Spring 2019. However, this is not the first time his relationship with China has raised some questions. Niikko is known as a strong advocate for stronger business ties between Finland and China and as a result has made multiple trips to China and hosted Chinese dignitaries in Finland. Now, why is this a bad thing? Well, assuming you know nothing about the political system in China, the main thing you need to know is the role of the Chinese Communist Party(CCP). To put it simply, the CCP has absolute control over pretty much everything and the whole system is built to keep them in power. The party's rule is enshrined in the Chinese constitution meaning that opposition to its rule is effectively illegal. Other political parties are allowed to operate in the country, however they have to recognize the CCP's ultimate authority. Even the People's Liberation Army (PLA), China's armed forces, are not a national army but the CCP's armed wing. Considering this, you should feel suspicious about anybody with business ties to China, since you can't really do anything in the country without approval from the CCP. Especially, if this person is in a position of power. The Chinese government is well known for trying to influence the world to get their way, sometimes in some rather absurd ways, so it's not a surprise that the Finnish intelligence service Supo has brought up concerns over this as well. As a side note, I previously wrote about China's panda diplomacy after Finland got two pandas in 2018. Since that post the zoo hosting the pandas has actually fallen into financial trouble, which I kinda predicted in that post.

The current story really starts in 2017. At least on two separate occasions in 2017, executives for the Chinese tech company Realmax Group visited Finland, while being hosted by Niikko. The same year, Realmax had received funding from the Chinese government and started operating in Finland under the name Realmax Oy. So Niikko is hosting executives for a company that received funding from the Chinese government. Already quite shady but we're only in the beginning. You see, in 2019 MOT, the investigative wing for Finland's national broadcaster Yle, ran a story about campaign finance irregularities in the 2015 parliamentary elections. Specifically, the MOT report found that Niikko had received a little under 5000€ donation from the person who would later become the CEO for Realmax Oy: which again, is a national branch for a company that received funding from the Chinese government, whose Chinese executives Niikko was hosting in Finland.

But this get's even more shady and we are not even in the more recent reports. Because the MOT report also revealed that Niikko had used a loophole to try and hide the identity of this person. You see, under Finnish campaign finance laws, the source for any campaign contribution above 1500€ has to be identified... with the notable exception of loans. So what Niikko did, was pay back the donation, effectively turning it into a loan and in the process hide the name of the person who gave it to him. The MOT story did not identify the person by name, although the more recent stories I'm getting into next identified them as a Chinese citizen named Hang Si. It's also worth noting that when confronted on it, Niikko denied knowing Hang Si. As a side note: no, foreign money is not actually banned under Finnish campaign finance laws.

So, already this looks pretty bad: Niikko hosted executives for a company that received funding from the Chinese government, after receiving a campaign contribution from it's national head in Finland and tried to cover it up but once again, it's about to get worse. Because on the 16th of January 2020, Suomen Kuvalehti reported that not only did Hang Si support Niikko's campaign in 2015, the two were at one point business partners. Turns out that Realmax Oy actually had three founders: the CEO Hang Si, Mika Niikko and his fellow Finns Party MP Ville Vähämäki. Niikko and Vähämäki were only involved with the company for a few months in 2017: the same year Niikko hosted all those Realmax executives in Finland. Additionally, the records show that they did not disclose their involvement with the company during this time.

The people haven't really commented on this. Hang Si and Niikko did give brief comments to Suomen Kuvalehti for the story. Apart from this, Niikko put out a statement on Facebook and gave some brief comments on a follow up story regarding some of the trips him and Vähämäki made to China. Vähämäki on the other hand has refused to give comments on his involvement. So, how did people explain themselves?

Well, since Niikko seems to be the main culprit here, let's start with him. Niikko claimed that he originally got involved with Realmax when he was helping "his friend" Hang Si to set up the company. According to him, he was made a shareholder in the moment. Now, I can kinda accept his explanation here: he helped a friend to set up a company and was made a shareholder in return. When asked why he didn't disclose his involvement with the company, he said he didn't do it because it wasn't required since his stake was so small. Which is actually true: his share in the company was 20% which is just at the limit of what has to be disclosed. Technically, he hasn't done anything wrong here. This does raise some questions however: here he is referring to Hang Si as a friend, but in the MOT story I mentioned earlier, Niikko denies knowing him. If this person is your friend, why lie? Additionally, if Niikko was simply helping his friend to set up the company, why was Vähämäki involved? When asked about this, Niikko simply told the reporter to ask Vähämäki: who, as mentioned earlier has refused to comment on this. In other words, we have no idea why he was involved.

The statement on Facebook leaves to be desired as well: he accuses Suomen Kuvalehti of making false claims... while basically admitting that the story is true. He did receive campaign funding from Hang Si. He was involved with Realmax Oy.  He hasn't withheld any information about his business deals.  All of this is true. Like I said earlier, he hasn't technically done anything wrong. His dealings are shady but haven't broken any guidelines. He also denied any involvement with the Chinese government, which considering what I said about the Chinese political system, is simply bullshit. In his brief comment Hang Si said basically the same thing. He denied any ties to the Chinese government and claimed to to be just a business man trying to make his way in the world. On his relationship with Niikko and Vähämäki he simply said that he met them at a business event years ago.

Like I said, this leaves a lot to be desired since there are still some unanswered questions. Why did Niikko see the need to hide Hang Si's identity? Why did he lie about their relationship? Again, he has technically done nothing wrong so why go this far to try and cover his tracks? Or what about the fact that we have no idea why Vähämäki got involved with this? Then comes the issue of Niikko's trips to China.

Realmax Oy was registered in Finland in June 2017. Earlier in the same year, Niikko and Vähämäki had made a trip to China, during which they took part in a business event hosted by Realmax. Additionally, the trip was paid by a organization Hang Si had ties to. Now, I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure which organization it was but based on what I've read the most likely option is the Jiangsu Science and Technology Promotion Association(JAST). Why is that? Well, Suomen Kuvalehti has reported that Hang Si was employed by the organization for a time. Additionally, we know that the organization did in fact pay for some of the trips Niikko and Vähämäki made to China. Just to point out, both men have made multiple trips to China paid for by various different entities. We actually don't know how many trips there are in total or who paid for them. The reason I'm bringing up JAST specifically, is because we know for certain it's involvement in this case and because it's possibly the most questionable part here.

JAST is a member organization of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). This organization has a deep connection with the Chinese government. This is a direct quote from their website: "As the largest non-governmental organization of scientific and technological professionals in China, the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) serves as a bridge that links the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government to the country's science and technology community. Through its 210 national member societies and local branches all over the country, CAST maintains close ties with millions of Chinese scientists, engineers and other professionals working in the fields of science and technology.".

So, while CAST presents itself as an NGO, its stated goal is to act as a link between China's scientific community, the government and the CCP. Additionally, the organizations president is a man named Wan Gang, who served as China's Minister of Science and Technology from 2007 to 2018 and has served as a vice chairman for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference since 2013. The organizations Executive Vice President Huai Jinpeng is a CCP member and serves, as I'm writing this, as a member of the CCP's central committee, the party's highest organ of authority. So already both of the organizations top leaders have political roles. This in a country which is effectively a one party dictatorship. This is just one more reason why Niikko and Hang Si denying any connections to the Chinese government simply bullshit. But once more it's about to get a bit worse.

I mentioned before that the Finnish intelligence service Supo has brought up concerns over Niikko's dealings in China. They have especially brought up concerns about the role of technology organizations in regards to possible intelligence operations. Now consider the fact that JAST has paid some trips Niikko and Vähämäki have made to China. An organisation, considered as a possible threat to national security by the Finnish intelligence service, has paid for trips made by two members of parliament. Already pretty worrying but it get worse. Because according to the FBI, the Chinese intelligence service has used JAST as a front to recruit spies for economic espionage. JAST is specifically identified in the indictment you can download behind that link.

So in summary: for the 2015 parliamentary election, Mika Niikko received campaign funding from Hang Si, a Chinese national with ties to an organization that is suspected to have been used as a front to recruit spies and later uses a loophole to hide his identity. In 2017, Niikko and his fellow MP Ville Vähämäki traveled to China on a trip to paid by the same organization Hang Si was involved with. During the trip they take part in business events hosted by Chinese technology firm Realmax which has received funding from the Chinese government and later in the same year join Hang Si in founding a company that acts as a national branch for Realmax. In 2019 Yle MOT runs a story on campaign finance in which they expose ties between Niikko and Hang Si, but when questioned on it Niikko denies knowing him. Then in January 2020, Suomen Kuvalehti reports on Niikko and Vähämäki being involved with Realmax and their dealings with China which inspired me to write this post.

So, what consequences have Niikko and Vähämäki faced? The answer: nothing. Like I've mentioned before, as far as we know, the two men haven't technically done anything wrong. As a result you can't really punish them for anything they did here at least officially. Theoretically, the foreign affairs committee could vote no confidence towards Niikko, forcing him to resign as the committee chair. Alternatively, their party could impose some form of sanctions towards them or at least reprimand them in some way. However, I'm not holding my breath for that.

Like I said in the beginning, both Niikko and Vähämäki are members of the Finns Party, which I labeled as right wing populist. They've been attacking the media for years by using similar tactics as Trump. They attack media outlets who make critical stories on them, accusing them of pushing for an agenda. This case is a good example of it. When the Finns Party's leader Jussi Halla-aho was first asked about Niikko and Vähämäki having possible ties to China his reaction was to question the validity of the reporting since he can't trust the media to get the facts straight. Similarly, Niikko claimed that his comments had been edited or taken out of context. Although he since then, at least seemingly, admitted that his comments were reported accurately he still accused the media of painting a false picture about his dealings with China. Halla-aho has pretty much sided with Niikko on this, just like every single Finns Party member I've seen comment on this.

So if the party wont punish them, what about the foreign affairs committee? Well, Niikko was asked to clarify his dealings with China and according to the committees vice chair Erkki Tuomioja, it was enough to clear him of any suspicion of wrongdoing. He did comment that MP's would need better guidelines to avoid situations like this in the future, but there were no actual consequences towards Niikko and he still continues to serve as the committee chairman. After some followup stories brought Niikko's comments under further questioning, Tuomioja did say that the committee would look into this matter again but I haven't heard anything from that.

Well, this came out longer than expected. Same thing could be said about my break from writing. It's been nearly a year since my last post. I've suggested in the past for people to follow me on Twitter, since I'm far more active there.

That being said, my original plan was to make this into a post about the Finns Party's various scandals in general but soon realized that would be way too long. Because of this I decided to split this into two. Let's just say, this is not the first time Niikko and Vähämäki have been in the news for doing something questionable or stupid.