1. Bring in some Chinese

By Jari Tervo
     
      The China phenomenon refers to the notion that all available work is flowing to China where they do it cheap. Chinese employers need to worry about labour costs about as much as the pharaohs did - that is, not at all.
      Lapland can be saved by turning the China phenomenon upside down. Instead of letting the work go to China we can bring in Chinese to do it here. I propose bringing two million Chinese to Lapland. They will save the Arctic wilderness, because the Chinese are inventive, in ways that Finns are not.
      The Chinese have endured tough times. For the past millennium they have withstood imperial, colonialist, and at present, semi-communist oppression. Compared with that, Lapland would be like a holiday under the palm trees.
     
Chinese would not be ordered in bulk. Contracts would be signed with each of them, guaranteeing them full human rights, and more - that is, a few years of tax-free status. Under the contract, the Chinese would be expected to live in Lapland for at least ten years, thereby preventing brain and muscle drain to Sweden. After ten years they would not even want to go elsewhere and abandon the fruit of their labour.
      People are the most important resource. Without them, no ore would be extracted from rock, and no beer would flow into the tourist’s glass.
     
The appearance of two million Chinese in Lapland would lead to massive change in Finnish society. It is hard to see it as a bad thing.
      For a moment, for a few decades, support for anti-immigrant parties would rise sky high, because people would be brought here to work at jobs that we cannot be bothered to do.
      However, this would be an historic decision. A couple of decades of unspecified shouting would be tolerable, knowing that the country is being saved.
     
None of the Chinese would be given municipal jobs in their new country. Their task would be to employ themselves and to create an overall economic buzz.
      It’s no more complicated than that. It’s exactly how all of this started.
      Lapland would get the world’s largest Chinatown outside China itself. Finland would win an Olympic gold medal in ping pong. Reindeer stew would be renamed reindeer wok, and with that name, it would conquer the world.
     
the Finnish state would make a grand welcoming gesture toward the Chinese and say: here you have land almost in the same condition as it was in the morning light of creation.
      Be fruitful and fill it up. We couldn’t do it ourselves.
     
The writer, a novelist, was born in Rovaniemi, and lives in Helsinki.

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