China is seen as one of the world’s leading countries, especially when it comes to economic and political power. Even though China is a powerful country, the image of China and the country’s population is one of negativity and distrust. This has become especially apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic, where derogatory terms such as the “China virus” have been used and there has been an increase in violence against people from China and other Asian countries. 

Therefore, this essay aims to analyse how China and its population have been portrayed, and also how European interests have been depicted and valued, in Swedish course books for history in upper secondary school during the period 1903-2010. A critical discourse was applied as the theoretical approach, in order to examine what type of vocabulary was used in these course books and how different discourses were used to describe China and its population. The post-colonial terms orientalism and othering were also used to examine how, or if, the course books upheld a Eurocentric discourse in their depiction of China.

The results of this study show that a majority of the course books that were analysed do uphold a Eurocentric point of view in their portrayal of China and other Non-European countries, and that this is most prominent in the course books that were published in the early 20th century, even though this did occur in the more modern course books as well. The results also show that the Chinese history is only made relevant when European countries are involved in some capacity and is therefore seldom depicted free from European influence.