On 28 September, Stockholm Free World Forum (Frivärld) and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Nordics launched the new anthology Europe’s Next Awakening: China – the Enabler and Hybrid Actor. A Close-Up on Northern and Western Europe at a well-attended seminar at Frivärld’s offices on Kungsgatan in Stockholm.
The anthology is the third instalment in Frivärld’s work on hybrid warfare, following the 2024 report Tracking the Russian Hybrid Warfare and the 2025 anthology Russia’s Hybrid War: The Northern Front. Where the earlier volumes mapped Russia’s hybrid war against Europe, the new book turns to the next layer of the threat. China as the decisive enabler of Russia’s war and as a hybrid actor in its own right. Where Russia confronts, China cultivates – through disinformation, elite capture and the patient creation of economic and technological dependencies.
The evening opened with welcoming remarks from Christine Leuchtenmüller, Resident Representative to the Nordic Countries at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, and Gunnar Hökmark, Chairman of Frivärld. This was followed by a discussion with the book’s authors, moderated by Anna Rennéus Guthrie, Director of Frivärld and editor of the anthology.
The panel featured:
- Luke de Pulford, Founder and Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), who analyses a decade of UK–China relations and the price of their asymmetry.
- Jeanette Serritzlev, Military Analyst at the Royal Danish Defence College, whose chapter examines Chinese influence and espionage activities in Denmark.
- Ferdinand A. Gehringer, Director and Lead Defense & Security at FTI Consulting Germany, who joined via video link and writes on China’s strategic embeddedness in Germany.
- Patrik Oksanen, Senior Resident Fellow and Head of Frivärld’s Center for Influence and Disinformation Analysis (CIDA), whose chapter addresses the Sino-Russian relationship.
The anthology also includes a chapter by Dr Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, China scholar and Director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, on Latvia’s strategic communications on maritime threats.
Together, the five contributions offer a country-by-country picture of how China’s quieter form of pressure is already at work in Northern and Western Europe – and what a European response should look like.
Buy the book here.