Chinese government efforts to influence Swedish media

Summary

• China has increased its efforts to influence foreign journalists and media over the past decade, not least through different forms of repression and various co-optation strategies. This report draws on an online survey and semi-structured interviews to investigate Chinese authoritarian influence attempts on Swedish language media outlets.
• Swedish journalists experience repression in both China and Sweden. One primary method of attempting to control reporting is by restricting access to China. A considerable number of research participants reported additional repressive activities, such as personal criticism from or threats by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese embassy in Sweden has been an active perpetrator of these repressive activities, and was particularly active in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Swedish journalists have also experienced possible attempts at co-optation by the Chinese authorities, such as offers of paid trips to China.
• Despite concerns about self-censorship in the broader community of Swedish language media, few individual journalists reported practicing this themselves. Rather than silencing Swedish journalists, this study suggests that China’s influence attempts have stimulated more critical reporting on China. This confirms the findings of previous studies that Chinese media interference is less effective in countries with robust democratic institutions and high levels of press freedom.

About the authors

The work on this report was funded by the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency (MPF). It is a collaboration between the Swedish National China Centre and Mälardalen University. The authors would like to thank intern Vera Sommardal and former intern Sidra Amir for their significant contributions to the project.