[Editor’s Note: As a result of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) genocide of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and other ethnic minority groups, many Western companies announced that they would not use Xinjiang cotton due to the persecution and the slave labor involved in the cotton production. China launched a boycott against multiple foreign companies including Swedish H&M clothing brand over their statement that they would ban cotton made in Xinjiang. Jojje Olson, a Swedish independent journalist recently received threats from the Chinese Embassy in Sweden for his coverage of Beijing’s boycott of H&M. As a result, members of the Swedish Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats urged the Swedish government to expel Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou from Sweden. See Chinascope’s previous article on the boycott at http://chinascope.org/archives/26323]

 

According to Expressen, an evening newspaper in Sweden, on Thursday April 8, Jojje Olson, an independent journalist who is familiar with China issues, received an email from the Chinese Embassy. The email demanded that he stop writing critical news reports on China and accused him of conspiring with people who advocate “Taiwan independence” and spreading misinformation to incite anti-Chinese sentiments. The email called Olson “dishonest and morally corrupt” and explicitly warned Olson that he would face consequences. This is not the first time that the embassy demanded that Olson stop reporting on China but the tone in the latest email appears to be more threatening.

A spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats stated that the Chinese ambassador to Sweden has threatened Swedish journalists and politicians for many years, which is unacceptable. In 2019, the Swedish Democratic Party proposed that Ambassador Gui Congyou be listed as an “unwelcomed person.” A spokesperson of the Christian Democrats mentioned that even though Gui Congyou was summoned, he didn’t change his wolf-warrior diplomatic style. Therefore the Swedish government should list Gui as an “unwelcome person.”

Since taking office as the Chinese ambassador to Sweden, Gui Congyou has repeatedly accused the Swedish media of “viciously attacking the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party.” In 2020, Gui Congyou accused the Swedish Express and the Swedish Daily of “maliciously criticizing China.” The embassy sent at least three malicious e-mails to the political editor of the Swedish Nerikes Allehanda newspaper for publishing an interview with Taiwan’s representative to Sweden while criticizing China in the same report.

Other Swedish opposition parties also expressed dissatisfaction with the Chinese Embassy’s attempts to influence Sweden’s freedom of speech.

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde stated that the Swedish government has summoned Gui Congyou multiple times to inform him that freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution of Sweden and that journalists are free to conduct interviews and reports. Meanwhile the Swedish government has repeatedly asked the Chinese ambassador to respect Swedish law and said they would not accept threats.

Source: Radio Free Asia, April 10, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/sw-journalist-04102021085656.html

As the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), propaganda activities in film, television and pop culture are in full swing, the authorities are also bringing in Westerners to “tell the China story.” The Shanghai Municipal Government and the Xinmin Evening News cooperated to produce a series of videos entitled “100 Years of the Great Party – Foreigners Tell the Stories.”

The series interviews 100 foreigners from all over the world, including artists, scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs, and sports stars, who share their feelings about Shanghai. The film was set to be shown for 100 days starting from April 8th.

The first episode featured Malcolm Clarke, an English film maker who received two Academy Awards for Best Documentary. In 2020, Clarke and his team were allowed to stay in the city of Wuhan to shoot a documentary about the outbreak of Covid-19.

Zhou Huilin, the propaganda chief of the CCP’s Shanghai Municipal Committee, said she hoped that the foreign media would “continue to adhere to an objective and impartial stance” in their reporting, so that the international community could understand the CCP, China and Shanghai.

Source: Central News Agency, April 9, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104090171.aspx

The primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that Liu Yuguang, a mainland China scholar on Buddhism, warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses Buddhism as a diplomacy tool in order to expand its influence over Southeast Asian governments.

Liu Yuguang, an associate professor at the School of Philosophy, Fudan University, Shanghai, made these remarks at a lecture on Buddhism that the Institute of East Asian Studies of National Chengchi University held in Taiwan.

According to Liu, the CCP is attempting to legitimize its claim that China is a “Buddhist power” by touting the fact that the total number of Buddhist believers in mainland China exceeds those in other Southeast Asian countries. Also, since Buddhism in India has declined, the CCP has been promoting China as the “new motherland of Buddhism.” It is part of the CCP’s internal propaganda that “Buddhism is the Chinese people’s religion,” which is used to stoke nationalism. However, although the CCP provides some breathing space for Buddhism, it is a quid pro quo. “I let you live, so you have to serve me.”

While domestically, the CCP views religions as a national security matter, such as subversion, secession, and religious terrorism, it has not neglected turning Buddhism into a diplomacy tool for foreign relations.

According to Liu, the CCP has realized that Confucius Institutes outside China have failed as a large-scale foreign propaganda tool because people think that “after all, they [Confucius Institutes] are merely about Chinese.” To expand the CCP’s influence effectively, it has turned to Buddhism as a propaganda tool in its attempts to influence Southeast Asian countries’ believers in Buddhism and their governments. Because Buddhism is practiced throughout Asia, the CCP believes that using Buddhism in its diplomacy will eventually help influence the Asian governments.

For example, the CCP has established religious educational institutions in mainland China such as the Nanhai Buddhist Academy on Hainan Island. The purpose is not to offer training to domestic religious communities but to attract monks from Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia and Laos. The religious educational institutions help the CCP cultivate relationships with Southeast Asian countries and ultimately use religion to influence political circles in Southeast Asian countries and to lobby and promote bilateral relations on terms favorable to China.

Source: CNA, April 1, 2021.
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104010249.aspx