Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin warned an Australian audience on Friday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would empower other aggressors and urged democracies not to form “critical dependencies” on authoritarian states like China.
Marin was speaking in Sydney at the end of the first visit by a Finnish prime minister to Australia and New Zealand. Australia’s pursuit of a free trade agreement with the European Union was on the agenda.
He used a speech to urge democracies to increase sanctions against Russia.
“Make no mistake, if Russia wins its terrible bet, it won’t be the only one feeling empowered,” Marin told the Lowy Institute’s international policy think tank.
“Others will also be tempted by the same dark agenda,” he added.
A free trade agreement being finalized between the European Union, which includes Finland, and Australia was an opportunity to build resilient supply chains, he said.
“We have become too dependent on cooperation with regimes that do not share our common values,” Marin said, using Finland’s reliance on Russian energy as an example.
“Our dependencies are becoming our weaknesses faster and more important areas of our partnerships than we would like to happen,” he added.
He described trade with China as a “reality.” “We all have concerns when it comes to China and we need to make sure that we don’t have those kinds of critical dependencies when it comes to China,” Marin said.
“We cannot depend, for example, on microchips or semiconductors or any kind of critical technology when it comes to authoritarian countries. Because if those trade routes were suddenly cut off, we would be in trouble,” he added.
Marin then met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at his official Sydney residence. The couple issued a joint statement saying their talks “underlined the need to work together to strengthen their resilience as open and democratic societies and foster sustainable development.” The prime ministers “agreed that managing complex supply chains, energy sources and investing in trusted critical and emerging technologies was necessary to promote economic, political, social and environmental stability, as well as human rights,” the statement said.
Australia, which is the most generous non-NATO donor to Ukraine’s war effort, and Finland, a country soon to become a NATO member and shares a 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) border with Russia, demanded in the statement that Moscow withdraw immediately. his Ukrainian forces.
