Social culture has an important interconnection associated with each language. With the increase of globalization and internationalization, language teaching should include both cultural and intercultural elements to improve students’ intercultural communication skills. Cultural and intercultural elements are required in modern language education in Sweden. Teaching materials, such as textbooks, should include cultural and intercultural elements to develop students´ intercultural communication skills. Teaching Chinese as a modern language overseas faces a challenge because foreign students typically have little knowledge of Chinese culture. This study investigates if the cultural and intercultural elements are included in three selected upper secondary Swedish Chinese textbooks. A mixed method, which combines qualitative and quantitative methods, has been used. The findings indicate that there are many kinds of cultural elements in the selected textbooks, but intercultural elements are implicitly integrated in grammar learning. These findings indicate that teacher needs to compare similarities and differences when selecting a textbook for teaching Chinese as a modern language in Sweden. It also reveals that teachers might have to organize reflective discussions for students to increase their intercultural communicative communication.