After a controversial incident involving Chinese tourists in Stockholm, this time it is a Swedish TV show that is triggering waves of comments on Chinese social media for “insulting Chinese.” Diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Stockholm seem to rise as the Chinese embassy has published another safety alert for Chinese citizens in Sweden today.

A satirical Swedish TV show is accused of “insulting Chinese” by Chinese media and netizens for a sketch that was featured its most recent episode. (Youtube link here).

The sketch was themed around the topic of ‘welcoming Chinese people to Sweden,’ listing a number of do’s and don’ts for Chinese tourists in a satirical ‘information video’ that was published on Chinese video streaming site Youku. The video was accompanied by a dubbed voice speaking in Chinese.

“Welcome to Sweden”

In the video, “taking a poo outside of a historical place,” for example, is said to be a “no do” -referring back to Chinese tourists allegedly pooing in public (there’s a Chinese sign outside the Louvre Museum that forbids people from defecating). The host also says that Chinese tourists should not mistake pet dogs that are being walked in Sweden for lunch.

The Swedish TV show in question is called ‘Swedish News’ (Svenska Nyheter/瑞典新闻), and makes satire out of recent (political) news. The controversial episode was aired on Friday night, September 21st.

Another issue, one that particularly seemed to have struck a nerve among Chinese netizens, is that the show also calls Chinese people “racist,” and says that Sweden is a multicultural society that protects the rights of everybody – believing in the equality of everybody no matter where they are from -, “unless they come from China.”

The satirical comment makes fun of the idea that Swedes would supposedly be racist towards Chinese. The alleged “abuse” of a Chinese family in Stockholm and its aftermath generated a lot of negative news attention on Sweden over the past month.

The controversial incident involving Chinese tourists and Swedish police.

The Chinese embassy in Sweden even issued a safety alert, stating that recently, there are more cases where Chinese tourists have been victims of theft and robbery, as well as cases where victims were treated poorly by Swedish police.

Another particularly sensitive issue, is that the show featured a map of China that did not show Taiwan nor parts of Tibet. What makes matters ‘worse,’ as reported by Chinese media, is that the video was uploaded to a Chinese video streaming site. The segment featured in the show also had the ‘Youku’ watermark in it.

“A gross insult to and vicious attack on China and the Chinese people.”

On September 23, Chinese media outlet The Observer wrote about “the Swedish TV show that insults China” (“辱华的瑞典节目”), suggesting that the show depicts Chinese as racist, calling it a “defamation of Chinese people.”

The Chinese Embassy in Sweden strongly denounced the TV show’s contents on Saturday, September 22, for “maliciously attacking China and Chinese people,” publishing an official statement on their website.

The full statement is a follows:

“In the evening of 21 September, the SVT broadcast a Swedish News program which outrageously insulted China. The program leader Jesper Rönndahl made comments that amount to a gross insult to and vicious attack on China and the Chinese people. We strongly condemn it, and have lodged a strong protest to SVT.

The SVT program and Jesper Rönndahl spread and advocate racism and xenophobia outright, and openly provoke and instigate racial hatred and confrontation targeting at China and some other ethnic groups. The program also referred to a wrong map of China where China’s Taiwan province and some part of the Tibet region were missing, which severely infringes on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The program breaks the basic moral principles of mankind, and gravely challenges human conscience and is a serious violation of media professional ethics. To think that such things could happen in Sweden, an advocate of ethnic equality!

Relevant program staff from SVT argued that this is an entertainment program, an argument which is totally unacceptable and we firmly reject. We urge SVT and the program to immediately give an apology. We reserve the rights to take further actions.”

“This is low. It is making Sweden look bad.”

On social media site Sina Weibo, the hashtag “Swedish TV Show Insults China” (#瑞典辱华节目#) has over 20,5 million views at time of writing, and it is also included in the top 10 of most popular topics.

Many netizens write the TV show is “excessively hurtful” towards China. Although a majority of those who previously commented on the tourist row said that the Chinese family was at fault, a seeming majority now says on Weibo that it is unfair to stigmatize all of China over that one family row.

“This is low. It is making Sweden look bad,” one popular comment read.

“Sweden can no longer distinguish right from wrong,” another top comment said: “They take in many refugees as if they’re family, but these migrants have low basic morals and go vandalizing everywhere, but the Swedish government is too afraid to even fart [at them]; they’d rather go scolding Chinese to get some sense of existentialism.”

“They think worse of Chinese than they do of refugees,” one person replied.

“We remind Chinese citizens in Sweden to pay extra attention to their safety.”

Over the past month, the relations between China and Sweden have become somewhat strained. An overview of the incidents:

◙ September 12: The Dalai Lama visits Sweden.

◙ September 14-16: Sweden and China end up in a diplomatic row after three Chinese tourists are thrown out of a hostel in Stockholm after an argument over their check-in time. It is noteworthy that this incident happened on in early September, but only received massive attention in Chinese media in mid-September. State media denied the criticism had any connection to the Dalai Lama’s visit to Sweden.

◙ Septmber 14: The Chinese Embassy in Sweden issues a safety alert stating that recently, there are more cases where Chinese tourists have been victims of theft and robbery, as well as cases where victims have been treated poorly by Swedish police.

◙ September 20: Official Chinese newspaper (or ‘Party tabloid’) Global Times publishes a column titled “Tolerant Chinese hotels”, which argues that Chinese hotels are “lenient and understanding”, and that “this good-hearted treatment isn’t the same for some Chinese tourists in Sweden who were violently thrown out of a hostel in the heart of the country’s metropolis.”

◙ September 21: The controversial Swedish satirical TV show airs, which allegedly “insults” China and Chinese people.

◙ September 22: The Swedish Migration Board decides to temporarily stop carrying out deportations of Uyghurs and other minorities back to China. According to InBeijing.se: “This also applies to cases were asylum have already been denied, such as the above mentioned family, who will not be forced to return to Xinjiang and the almost certain repression awaiting them there.” Also read about the earlier news on this insightful site involving the Uyghur family that risked deportation from Sweden.

◙ September 22: The Chinese Embassy in Sweden issues a statement denouncing the satirical Swedish TV show for “maliciously attacking” China.

◙ September 23: The Chinese Embassy in Stockholm issues another safety alert for Chinese in Sweden, warning Chinese to pay extra attention to their safety in China, saying: “We remind Chinese citizens in Sweden to pay attention to their safety. Since April of this year, we have received daily reports from Chinese about being robbed, having things stolen and losing documents, but the Swedish police so far have not investigated any cases. We cannot effectively guarantuee the legal rights of Chinese citizens [here].”

Note that the case of Gui Minhai (桂民海), a Chinese-born Swedish scholar and prolific book publisher who has been in custody or under close surveillance in mainland China for the past two years, also continues to be an important point of disagreement between China and Sweden.

After all controversy, some people on Weibo now write: “Just don’t go to Sweden.” Many others say: “I wouldn’t even want to go anymore.”

By Manya Koetse, Richard Barnes, Miranda Barnes
Follow @whatsonweibo

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us.

©2018 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

The maltreatment of a Chinese family in Stockholm earlier this month has ignited major discussions on Chinese social media, and has led to the Chinese Embassy in Sweden issuing a safety alert for Chinese tourists visiting the country. Many netizens are skeptical of the trending incident.

Over the past few days, an incident that took place in Sweden earlier this month has attracted major attention on Chinese social media.

Bystander videos going around Chinese social media show how a Chinese man is dragged out of a hotel by Swedish police, and later shows a woman and young man are crying on the street outside of a hotel (see embedded video below).

According to various Chinese news reports, the incident involves the Chinese family Zeng (曾), a younger man and his two senior parents, that was traveling to Sweden’s capital Stockholm on September 2nd.

When they arrived at their hotel, the Generator Stockholm hostel, it was not yet check-in time. The family suggested they would pay a fee to the hotel as long as they could wait in the lobby until they could check in to their hotel rooms. Zeng’s father reportedly is 67 years old and suffers from cardiovascular disease.

Sina News reports that the hotel refused the family’s request and even called the police to have the Chinese tourists removed from their lobby in the middle of the night, though both parents claimed they were feeling sick.

State media outlet ECNS writes that the police also denied the family’s request to stay at the hotel, and dragged his father out of the lobby and threw him to the ground outside.

The man later claimed on Chinese social media that his father consequently lost consciousness and that his body started twitching. Zeng and his parents were allegedly taken away from the hotel in a police car and were dropped off near a cemetery in the city’s suburbs.

The family then received help from bystanders in getting back to the city center, where they reported the incident to the Chinese embassy.

THE AFTERMATH

“This has inevitably raised questions over Sweden’s ability to protect human rights and conduct law enforcement in a civilized manner.“

Chinese media are greatly criticizing Swedish authorities for how they have handled the incident; both that night and during the aftermath. Swedish authorities did not respond to the issue for two weeks after it occurred.

On Friday, September 14, the Chinese Embassy in Sweden issued a safety alert, stating that recently, there are more cases where Chinese tourists have been victims of theft and robbery, as well as cases where victims were treated poorly by Swedish police.

A day later, the Chinese Embassy in Sweden also issued a statement regarding the “brutal abuse of Chinese tourists by Swedish police,” writing:

“Around midnight on 2 September, three Chinese tourists were brutally abused by the Swedish police. The Chinese Embassy in Sweden is deeply appalled and angered by what happened and strongly condemns the behavior of the Swedish police. The Embassy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China have made solemn representations to the Swedish government respectively in Stockholm and Beijing, stressing that what the police had done severely endangered the life and violated the basic human rights of the Chinese citizens. We urged the Swedish government to conduct thorough and immediate investigation, and respond to the Chinese citizens’ requests for punishment, apology and compensation in time. We cannot understand why the Swedish side has not given us any feedback. We hope that the Swedish side will handle the case in accordance with law, and urge the Swedish side again to take immediate actions to protect the safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in Sweden.”

Swedish media first reported the incident on Saturday, September 15 (Aftonbladet). On Sunday, September 16, the Swedish Embassy finally responded to the issue.  A statement on their official Weibo account said that the Embassy is aware of the case and is assigning a special prosecutor to investigate the case and to determine whether or not the Swedish police have used improper violence. As clarified by a spokesperson of the Embassy of Sweden to What’s on Weibo: “The Embassy has not assigned the special prosecutor, as you can read in our statement. Instead, the prosecutor is assigned automatically every time an incident of alleged police misconduct is reported.”

According to a column on the website of English-language Chinese state broadcaster CGTN, the incident is now also one about a Swedish human rights protection:

“(..) the way the local police in downtown Stockholm conducted themselves during the incident in a city hotel and on the streets on September 2 has inevitably raised questions over Sweden’s ability to protect human rights and conduct law enforcement in a civilized manner.”

SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSES

“Is this the police or the criminal underworld?“

On Chinese social media, responses to the incident have been mixed. Many people feel that the family unnecessarily “made a big scene,” and condemn the young Mr. Zeng for “falling down on the ground as a crying baby.” They also say that these Chinese tourists are a “disgrace”: “They might as well have buried them at the graveyard,” some commenters write.

But there are also those who do not understand why the Swedish police handled the case in this way, taking the family in a police car and dropping them on a suburban curbside some six kilometers away, instead of bringing them to the police station or another hotel for the night.

“Perhaps the behavior of these three Chinese citizens was not very appropriate, but two of them are old people, they are not familiar with the area. To throw them out in the early morning, miles away at a cemetery where there are no hotels or stores, is really incorrect behavior by the Swedish police.”

From hotel lobby to suburban curbside; screenshot posted by Chinese netizens.

One well-known law blogger (@易辩任煜) wrote on Weibo: “It’s ok to enforce law and to bring people back to the police station and to give them a fine or something like that, but to throw them out like that? Is this the police or the criminal underworld?

There are also Chinese (micro-) bloggers who claim that the fact that this incident is making headlines in Chinese state media now relates to the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Sweden, writing: “China just needs a reason to put pressure on them.”

“This is all about the visit of the Dalai Lama Sweden on the 12th,” many others claim.

By now, the hashtag “Chinese Tourists Maltreated by Swedish Police” (#中国游客遭瑞典警察粗暴对待#) has received more than 100 million views.

This is not the first time the maltreatment of Chinese tourists abroad receives mass attention in Chinese media. In January of 2016, pictures and a video of two Dutch boys emptying boxes of milk powder over Chinese tourists in Amsterdam also ignited major discussions.

The milkpowder incident.

In 2017, a video of a Chinese-looking man being dragged out of an overbooked United Airlines flight also went viral online in China, attracting tens of thousands of outraged posts on the discrimination of Chinese abroad. It later turned out that the passenger involved in the incident, now called the “United Express Flight 3411 Incident“, was not a Chinese citizen, but a 69-year-old Asian-American doctor from Kentucky.

About this incident, some Chinese social media users say that they think it will affect international relations between China and Sweden.

Update: since this original article was published on Sunday (Sept 16), this news item has made international headlines. For the latest developments and news facts in this matter check, for example, this Washington Post article.

By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
Follow @whatsonweibo

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us.

©2018 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.