Sweden does not have a strong presence on the international stage, but Swedish products and services can be found everywhere in our daily lives, such as Ericsson, the world's largest mobile carrier, and IKEA, a home furnishing company known for its minimalist style.
However, recently because of the Xinjiang cotton issue, the practice of Swedish garment manufacturer H&M has sparked widespread controversy, and even led to tensions between Sweden and China.
So, what kind of country is Sweden, which has always been against our country?
Sweden's opposition party demanded the expulsion of Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou on April 11, 2021, and although this is only a proposal that has not yet been approved by parliament, it has already aroused the feelings of the Chinese people**.
Ambassadors abroad are representatives of a country in other countries, and a request to expel an ambassador could in itself strain relations between the two countries. Subsequently, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Lind said that Sweden will not expel the Chinese ambassador and hopes to keep the channels of dialogue and communication open to maintain the continuous dialogue between China and Sweden.
The incident seemed to end in a farce due to the H&M boycott of Xinjiang cotton, which Ambassador Gui Congyou lodged with Sweden** on March 23, 2021.
In the face of this position of Sweden, we will, as always, put forward ** and make a well-founded argument. Our *** made it clear that Sweden's so-called freedom of speech means that they have the right to speak about their lies about China, and we don't have the right to correct those lies?
This series of events has led us to turn our attention to Sweden, a country that is not usually our focus. Although such diplomatic disputes are not uncommon in our country's dealings with other countries, this time between Sweden and us seems somewhat unexpected.
Therefore, the attention and research on this issue is not only about the direction of Sino-Swiss relations, because it could lead to similar disputes between other European countries and us.
After all, disputes over human rights and freedom of expression used to occur more often with big countries like the United States and France, so why did Sweden take this step?
In Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, Sweden was a force to be reckoned with. Its location in Northern Europe and its military strength led to the defeat of Norway and Finland.
The five great powers of Europe at that time were the Holy Roman Empire, France, Spain, Sweden and Poland, and Sweden dominated the Nordic region with its great strength.
The Reformation, which began at the beginning of the 16th century, changed the religious landscape of Europe and reshaped the political landscape of Europe. The opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism created the ** in Europe, with Protestantism concentrated mainly in the north of Europe and Catholicism mainly in the south.
Religious divisions eventually led to the Thirty Years' War in 1618. During the first twelve years of this war, the army of the Holy Roman Emperor managed to defeat the Protestant forces in the territory and Denmark.
It was at this critical moment when Protestantism was in danger that King Gustav II of Sweden personally went on his expedition and defeated the forces of the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Brydenfeld on September 17, 1631, and penetrated deep into the heart of Germany, greatly boosting the morale of Protestants.
However, in the Battle of Lützen in 1632, Gustav II died heroically in this battle, despite the fact that the Swedish army was again victorious.
Sweden won the peak of its international standing in the Thirty Years' War, which ended in a Protestant victory. However, its Nordic hegemony was replaced by the emerging Russian Empire in the Great Northern War in the early 18th century, and Sweden ceased to be one of the European powers.
However, this did not mean a decline, but rather a new starting point for Sweden to reinvent itself.
After the defeat in the Northern War, Sweden abolished its ** system, which marked the beginning of the "era of freedom" in Swedish history. Subsequently, Sweden created a new constitutional monarchy, which led to the development of constitutional law.
One might question this, but in fact, there are three main types of constitutions in modern times: the King James Constitution, the Agreement Constitution, and the People's Constitution. The King James Constitution and the People's Constitution represent the will of the monarch and the people respectively, while the Constitution of Agreement is a consensus reached between the monarch and the people after consultation.
In the world at the beginning of the 19th century, the United States, as a representative of the New World, took the lead in creating the world's earliest civil constitution, but on the European continent, the birthplace of modern civilization, the existence of a constitution was extremely scarce, and even a considerable number of countries did not even have a constitution.
The constitution of agreement was seen as a political compromise, a stable system that has endured to this day and has taken on a distinctive character in the trajectory of industrialization.
Sweden's industrialization did not rely on colonial plunder for initial capital accumulation, as Britain and France did, and it had no colonies or spheres of influence, which also gave us a glimpse of a relatively "peaceful" path to capitalist industrialization.
Sweden's rise to prominence is similar to that of Germany, and although Sweden has no colonies, it has surpassed Britain and the United States in terms of industrialization, and has one of the highest levels of GDP and income per capita.
Sweden's military brilliance and institutional innovation are equally eye-catching, especially its highly developed welfare system, which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Features of the Swedish Welfare System: An Exploration of the "Scandinavian Model" from the Perspective of Industrialization and a Neutral Economy. The Scandinavian Model: The Combination of Economic, Tax, and Industrialization Paths Behind High Welfare Social cooperativism: an alternative interpretation of the Swedish welfare system.
Sweden's model of social cooperationism breaks with the traditional welfare state's view of employment as a means and emphasizes that maintaining full employment is a welfare in itself. This model encourages workers to voluntarily limit their wages, thereby achieving a balance between income, taxes, and benefits.
Achieving this balance is not an easy task and relies on three pillars: orderly industrial relations, labour market policies, and a general consensus on the economic and social measures of the welfare state.
Among them, orderly industrial relations are the core of the Swedish model, and it is also the biggest difference from the American model.
While the U.S. model relies on a myriad of small, high-tech factories and low-wage service industries, Sweden has shifted from manufacturing to services and high-tech industries by transforming its industries to boost employment, not only keeping pace with technological change, but also avoiding excessive cuts in workers' treatments.
The current Swedes no longer miss the glory of the time of Gustav II, because they now have a dignified national identity. A review of Swedish history may reveal a lot of interesting things, but if we were to pick one word that best describes Sweden, the answer would probably be "unique".
Sweden is a pioneering pioneer in many fields, not only in the political and economic spheres, but also in the humanities. Take the Swedish style of furniture design, for example, which is unique around the world, and IKEA is a prime example of that.
Now, let's rewind the time to the present, since a country like Sweden has so many uniqueness, is there also some kind of uniqueness in the evolution of its relationship with our country?
This may come as a surprise to many people who don't know much about this history, but if we already know that Sweden is such a special country, then the answer wouldn't be so unexpected.
The international political science community believes that the main reason why Sweden became the first to recognize the new China is that Sweden has a clear understanding of its unique identity in the international system.
Sweden has always been assertive, and even during the Cold War, when the two camps were clearly divided, they chose to follow their own path, and that is their identity. At the time of the Korean War, Denmark and Norway both shared the American view that China was the aggressor, but Sweden voted against it.
Sweden's diplomatic relations with China have always maintained this maverick character, and they rarely follow the crowd, whether they are close or deteriorate. When dealing with foreign relations, Sweden pays more attention to the interaction between ** and culture, rather than the issue of ideological siding.
An interesting phenomenon can be explained: after the rift in Sino-Swiss relations over the H&M Xinjiang cotton incident, Sweden has shown surprisingly calm about continuing to do business in China to make money.
In our opinion, such outrageous behavior is not considered inappropriate in Sweden. We find Sweden unfriendly, probably because we habitually think that foreigners are friendly and that they have no reason to be our hostile.
However, when the reality is the opposite of what we presupposed, we are surprised and incomprehensible, and even show anger. Even if there are cultural differences, China will not swallow its anger if Sweden behaves unkindly towards China.
In addition to the anger, it may be more important to understand why Sweden would risk hurting economic and trade exchanges by making malicious moves. For such a unique country as Sweden, we should learn from it on the issue of economic and social development, and when handling diplomatic relations with Sweden, we also need to change the traditional diplomatic thinking and look at it from a special perspective.