When Anna Lindstedt took over as ambassador in Beijing in september 2016, she had a long diplomatkarriär behind him. Anna Lindstedt had been the ambassador in Mexico and in Vietnam, and for Sweden’s part led the negotiations for the treaty, which was signed in Paris in 2015. She had served at the embassies in Indonesia and Pakistan. Before she began at the MFA, she worked several years as a journalist.

the Climate issue was one of the she is considered to be able to take with them to China, which has stepped forward in the area. The time in Beijing, however, came to be dominated by the Swedish bokförläggaren Gui Minhai, imprisoned in October 2015.

Contacts with the chinese authorities was, say diplomats with direct experience of them, already from the beginning frustrating. Often it was difficult to even get in contact with them.

describes Anna Lindstedt as an intelligent, fast, multi-lingual and a skilled and judicious diplomat, though the bushy rather than shy.

The previous Kinaambassadören Börje Ljunggren was Anna Lindstedts head of the foreign MINISTRY’s Asienenhet in the beginning of the 2000s. He says that he knows her ”socially talented, intelligent and multi-lingual”. He praises her for what she did as klimatambassadör, but continues:

” this is a completely different location. Case Gui Minhai is a quarry. It has preyed on all concerned.

He is surprised that it is Anna Lindstedt has done, and believes that the lack of embeddedness of the foreign MINISTRY is central.

” I think that she has acted in good faith, but, by all accounts, strange unsuspectingly. The whole thing is tragic.

the Same image gives the number of other DN are talking with.

– There is no doubt that Anna Lindstedt is extremely engaged, but she has failed, and run away without getting instructions. Don’t forget that this is also a human tragedy, no one believes that Anna Lindstedt has wanted something evil. She has been at UD for 30 years, without known cases of misconduct, says a person at the MFA.

But there are those who know Anna Lindstedt, and hold it for unlikely that she has acted entirely on his own volition, without any form of anchorage.

Angela Gui of the appointment of Anna Lindstedt to the new Agenda 2030-ambassador. If Anna Lindstedt sought away from Beijing, or was reassigned against their will is unclear, but according to one of DN’s sources, she wanted to be happy to continue with China.

It is also not known what prompted her to invite bokförläggarens daughter Angela Gui to Stockholm for negotiations with the chinese businessmen, most likely with contacts within the communist party, about a possible release, shortly before she was to leave Beijing.

the Embassy in Beijing is now managed by its chargé d’affaires, Karl-Olof Andersson. The foreign MINISTRY has sent inspectors there. Sweden’s consul general in Shanghai, Lisette Lindahl, says that the Gui Minhais cases, the most affected is the embassy in Beijing. She is of the firm opinion that the foreign MINISTRY was taken by surprise by the meeting in Stockholm.

” If the stories circulating is true, many people involved in these days. People have come and gone, and in some cases themselves have told about it in the newspaper. For me, it represents the not quiet diplomacy. The point in the diplomatvärlden is that quiet diplomacy is not to come out, ” says Lisette Lindahl.

Gui Minhais cases is unknown. The previous kulturattachén in Beijing Magnus fish pond, now a researcher at Cornell University in New York, pointed out that China does not have anything against an internal mess in Sweden: the Swedish security service is investigating the UD hear definitely there.

” It is very possible, but ideally, you want enough of the chinese, not that anything should be written about it here. From that angle, they can hardly be happy right now, ” says Lisette Lindahl.

Börje Ljunggren warns to forget the starting-point:

– An american has been kidnapped in a third country. China says that the law should be followed, and the trial held, but the Gui Minhai was kidnapped. You sometimes speak of a country has the ”soft power”, but this here – it is ”sharp power”. You do what is in one’s interest, without asking for the appropriate section of the law.

foreign Minister Margot Wallström has said that the foreign MINISTRY is now trying to minimize the damage of the events, and to Säpos investigation must be awaited.

the DN has searched Anna Lindstedt.

Read more: the Billionaire who would get the Gui Minhai free