Today, Säpo explicitly states China as a security threat to Sweden, along with Russia and Iran.
Henrik Edvinsson, senior analyst at SAPO's counterintelligence, says that SAPO has stopped Chinese espionage in Sweden but does not want to give any details about many times it has happened.
He also does not want to specify where it is known that China has placed spies who report on the political system in Sweden, but says that there is a broad intelligence gathering, as well as influence operations against Sweden on political issues (see video).
Problems for multiple
Several Chinese companies have experienced problems in the West in recent years.
Huawei was stopped in 2021 from participating in the rollout of the Swedish 5G network, citing Sweden's security.
Two years earlier, a SVT review showed how Nordic Huawei executives emphasized Chinese government positions at internal meetings with business partners in Sweden, a review that prevented two of the executives from representing the company.
Several authorities and companies have stopped the use of the Chinese app Tiktok, citing its collection of user data. Most recently, a decision was made by the Australian government and in Sweden, SVT, the Armed Forces and several regions have previously banned the app.
Do not accept portrayed as threats
Chinese influence has also been discussed in a number of other areas over the past year.
Last autumn, there were revelations about alleged Chinese "police stations" in Sweden, among other places, and this year both Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet have examined links between the Chinese military and visiting researchers who have been active in Sweden.
SVT has sought the Chinese embassy in Stockholm, which has repeatedly rejected criticism, most recently in DN where they expressed in a written comment to the research review that they did not accept "that China is portrayed as some kind of threat".