Winter sports are a model for cooperation
Chinese and Finnish national flags flutter on a lamppost in front of the Tian'anmen Square during the visit of President of Finland Sauli Niinisto to China in Beijing, China, on January 13, 2019.
Usually the Great Hall of the People in Beijing is reserved for important meetings or receiving distinguished guests.
But on Monday, a hall in the west wing was adorned with decorations of ice and snow, in preparation for the inaugural ceremony of the 2019 China-Finland Year of Winter Sports.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto officially launched the China-Finland Year of Winter Sports on Monday.
There will be huge potential for cooperation in winter sports between the two countries.
Finland is well established in winter sports training and competition, while China is home to a booming number of winter sports lovers and will host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.
Sporting ties between China and Finland stretch back to the middle of the last century.
The People’s Republic of China made its Olympic debut at the 1952 Games in Finland’s capital Helsinki.
On Monday, the two sides published a joint action plan (2019-2023) on promoting the future-oriented cooperative partnership.
A series of measures for promoting winter sports cooperation are under way, including establishing a China-Finland winter sports department at Beijing Sport University, a leading sporting institution of higher learning in China.
Zhu Jing, deputy director-general of the Department of European Affairs of China’s Foreign Ministry, said that during the new year, the two sides would jointly host more than 40 events, including personnel training, games organizations and sports research.
China has overseen a robust development in winter sports as it prepares to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
In December, China’s State Council released guidelines to speed up the development of the sports industry, aiming to grow it into a 2 trillion yuan (US$296 billion) industry by 2025.
China aims to engage 300 million citizens in winter sports by 2022, as laid out in a plan formulated by the State General Administration of Sport in 2018.
“That enables Finland to provide a lot in terms of infrastructure construction,” said Sampo Terho, Finland’s sports and culture minister.
