"Everything is lies and black painting", is the message from China's ambassador Gui Congyou who is interviewed in SVT's interview program "30 minutes".
In the program, the ambassador launches a fierce attack on critics and rejects, among other things, the country's repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
But how should Sweden handle China?
To answer that question, the former Minister of State and Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt (M) and the Christian Democrats' foreign policy spokesman Lars Adaktusson met for a debate in Aktuellt.
"Has violated its powers"
Adaktusson calls the Chinese ambassador's participation in the program "an exposé in lies" and KD is one of the parliamentary parties that have demanded that the ambassador be expelled from Sweden.
- It is about an ambassador who has violated his powers, he has acted in such a way that does not agree with how a diplomat should act, says Adaktusson.
Carl Bildt believes that an expulsion would only lead to Sweden's ambassador to Beijing being fired.
- It would affect Sweden and our interests in China quite significantly, he says and continues:
- This is soon the world's largest economy.
What happens there is important to us, we must have contacts and we must be prepared for confrontations where necessary and we must be prepared for cooperation when it is in our interest.
Difficult demarcation
Adaktusson believes that the issue must be seen in a larger perspective that deals with China's interests outside its own country's borders.
He calls for a more value-driven foreign policy.
- Sometimes foreign policy is too much dominated by realpolitik where you look at the effects and ignore what is moralistic, he says.
- It is difficult to make that demarcation, foreign policy spans quite wide fields, Bildt answers.