Chinese schools in Sweden spread the Communist Party’s worldview to children with the help of Swedish taxpayers’ money. Cold facts have identified five language schools with strong links to the authoritarian regime in Beijing.
– It’s about controlling the narrative and the view of China, says China analyst Erika Staffas Edström.
In the heart of Stockholm, on Södermalm, is the Ruiqing school where roughly 150 children and young people are taught Chinese every Saturday. Cold facts can now reveal how the school has strong connections to the Chinese Communist Party, a connection that applies to at least four other similar schools in Sweden. They are located in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Eskilstuna.
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Want to ensure power
– Fundamentally, everything the Communist Party does is about securing its hold on power. This means that you have to control groups both inside and outside of China, says Erika Staffas Edström, China analyst at NKK at the Foreign Policy Institute.
The textbooks published by Peking University Press teach, among other things, that disputed territories, such as Taiwan and islands in the South China Sea, are Chinese. In another series of books from China’s Ministry of Education, which is used in several of the schools, the children read articles from state-controlled media. Among other things, they can read about the Communist Party’s role models and discuss why Chairman Mao thought a person was a good overseas Chinese.
– It is important to point out that just because you go to a school like this, you do not necessarily agree with or even feel influenced by a possible party-friendly narrative that is put forward in these schools, says Frida Lindberg, China analyst at NKK at the Department of Foreign Policy the institute.
Part of influence operation
The training that is conducted at the Chinese language schools in Sweden is part of a larger influence operation that is organized via the so-called United Front. The United Front, which is subordinate to the Communist Party, operates through companies and associations that must give the impression of being independent. One of the goals is to prevent critical voices against the party from emerging abroad.
– It can be compared to an umbrella organization within the party that is used to reach out to and influence actors that are relevant to the party, says Frida Lindberg, China analyst at NKK at the Foreign Policy Institute.
An example of a connection is that the chairman of the Ruiqing school, Ye Peiquan, has been singled out by the think tank Frivärld as central to the Swedish part of the Unity Front.
Funded with the help of tax money
In Stockholm, the municipality has let the schools use the premises free of charge. Several of the schools have also received support paid by the student unions Bilda and ABF. Since the beginning of 2020, approximately 200,000 tax kroner have been paid out from ABF in Stockholm, which has now stopped all payments.
– We should not work with this type of association with connections to a dictatorship that does not stand for democratic values, says ABF’s student ombudsman, Calle Nathanson.
The criterion: Oppose all criticism of the regime
Cold facts’ review shows that at least four of the Chinese schools in Sweden have been designated by the Unity Front as so-called model schools, which are to serve as role models for others. The criteria for becoming a model school include opposing all criticism of the Chinese regime. But when Cold Facts calls, Ruiqing School Principal Wang Meishuang gives a different picture:
– I can say this, we are completely free. The only thing we might enjoy is that we get free education when we travel on our holidays.
Additional Chinese schools with similar connections can be found in Malmö and Lund, according to an as yet unpublished report from the Chinese analysts at the Foreign Policy Institute.
The Swedish Chinese Schools and the Unity Front
In Sweden, there are several Chinese language schools, internationally known as Chinese language schools, CLS’s. The schools are located in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Eskilstuna, among others, and gather a few thousand students, mostly children and young people with Chinese language through one or both parents.
Teaching takes place on weekends and is paid for with a semester fee, but the language schools may also receive tax money through support from Swedish municipalities and student associations.
According to Kalla fakta’s review, at least five of the schools have strong connections to the Communist Party of the Communist Party of China, through the Chinese embassy in Stockholm or through the so-called United Front.
The United Front is an authority under the Communist Party with the aim of spreading the party’s influence around the world. The unity front operates through companies and associations that must give the impression of being independent. Both Mao Zedong, the CCP’s founder, and current chairman Xi Jinping have described the United Front as one of the party’s three magic weapons, where one of the goals is to prevent critical voices against the party from emerging among Chinese living abroad.
The CCP considers everyone of Chinese background to be part of the Chinese nation, nationality in their view is determined by ethnicity, not by citizenship. The Chinese diaspora in the world amounts to 40 – 60 million people, according to the FOI report The Chinese Communist Party and the Diaspora. According to Statistics Norway, there were a total of 50,363 people living in Sweden in 2022 who were either born in China or had at least one parent who was.