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Kevin Rudd tackles Xi Jinping · The Front

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  Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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  Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
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  Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, October sixteen.
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi says he's in politics for the long haul
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  Speaker 1: after the opposition suggested his purchase of a four point
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  Speaker 1: three million dollar beach house suggests he's planning for life
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  Speaker 1: after the lodge. The Greens have attacked the purchase, coming
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  Speaker 1: as Australians struggle with the cost of housing. A gold
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  Speaker 1: mine proposed for Waddery Country in New South Wales was
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  Speaker 1: blocked after activists cited as evidence an artwork of a
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  Speaker 1: blue banded bee, but now links between the activists and
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  Speaker 1: the artists are emerging. Those stories alive now at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot a you. Kevin rad says the
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  Speaker 1: US and Australia must deter China's Shishinping from invading Taiwan
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  Speaker 1: with catastrophic consequences. Today a provocative book by a very
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  Speaker 1: unusual diplomat.
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  Speaker 2: Well the b are you Chump? Well, how's you get? Bye?
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  Speaker 2: Undred Bay Light way in.
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  Speaker 1: This is Kevin brad Way back in twenty eleven doing
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a humble brag about his ability to
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  Speaker 1: speak Mandarin. He says, my Mandarin is very bad. It's
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  Speaker 1: getting worse and worse. I'm one hundred percent of foreigner,
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  Speaker 1: so I don't understand many Chinese characters. The host asks
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  Speaker 1: if you'd compare himself to famous Chinese leader Dang Zhoping,
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  Speaker 1: who returned multiple times to the leadership. This was in
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  Speaker 1: twenty eleven. Remember when Julia Gillard had deposed Rudd and
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  Speaker 1: Rudd was cooling his heels as Foreign Minister. Oh no, no,
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  Speaker 1: chortles Rudd. Dung is a hugely influential figure who's changed
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  Speaker 1: the world. I'm just an Australian politician.
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  Speaker 2: Na shall rush for brother that done Joping Pasha Tungwar.
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  Speaker 1: Rud did, of course come back again, knifing Gillard to
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  Speaker 1: become PM and lead Labor to defeat at the twenty
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  Speaker 1: thirteen election. He's not just your average politician. Rudd has
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  Speaker 1: been an academic and a diplomat, writing a pH d
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  Speaker 1: thesis on China's present leader Shi Shinping. Now he's Australia's
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  Speaker 1: ambassador to the United States, and he's turned that thesis
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  Speaker 1: into a book in a very undiplomatic kind of way.
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  Speaker 1: Rudd's thesis is that she has fundamentally changed China and
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  Speaker 1: must now be deterred from invading Taiwan.
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  Speaker 3: He argues, the danger period is now.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's National Affairs editor. He's reporting
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  Speaker 1: from Washington, DC, and he obtained an early copy of
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  Speaker 1: Rudd's new book.
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  Speaker 3: The danger period will last as long as Xijinping is
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  Speaker 3: in power. This is an extremely hawkish interpretation of Xijinping
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  Speaker 3: and his influence on China, and the case that Kevin
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  Speaker 3: Rudd makes is that there isn't sufficient appreciation of Xijinping's
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  Speaker 3: ideological worldview and how that worldview has influenced all aspects
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  Speaker 3: of Chinese society.
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  Speaker 1: Rudd says she isn't just another leader. He says the
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  Speaker 1: force of his personality and the totalitarian control of China
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  Speaker 1: is so great that he has fundamentally shifted the behavior
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  Speaker 1: of that nation. The biggest risk, Rudd says, is that
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  Speaker 1: she will invade Taiwan and fundamentally shake the world.
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  Speaker 3: He says, if Xijinping is successful in reclaiming Taiwan, that
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  Speaker 3: his position will then be unassailable. Then the US will
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  Speaker 3: go into a period of global decline, and from that
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  Speaker 3: moment the path of world affairs will irrevocably change.
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  Speaker 4: War whatever its outcome, would generate death and destruction at
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  Speaker 4: an unimaginable scale. It would also redefine Chinese, American and
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  Speaker 4: global politics and geopolitics in deeply unpredictable yet indelible ways.
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  Speaker 3: However, if Jijinping fails, if he launches an attempt to
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  Speaker 3: retake Taiwan and fails, this will be seen as a
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  Speaker 3: moment of humiliation for him, a repudiation of his own beliefs,
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  Speaker 3: and a letdown for China generally. He also says that
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  Speaker 3: if the United States and it's allies can engineer a
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  Speaker 3: situation where the stakes are seen to be too high
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  Speaker 3: for Jijinping to risk an attempt to reclaim Taiwan, it's
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  Speaker 3: unlikely that Jijinping's successor would try to take the island territory.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that is the trajectory Kevin Rudder is
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  Speaker 3: hoping will unfold in real time.
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  Speaker 4: She's intention is not just to change China, it is
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  Speaker 4: also to change the international order itself underpinned by an
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  Speaker 4: increasingly powerful China as the emerging geopolitical and geoeconomic fulcrum
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  Speaker 4: of that order.
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  Speaker 1: Geoeconomic fulcrum is a classic Ruddism. It was this brand
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  Speaker 1: of hyper articulate, folksy geekdom that made an unlikely popular
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  Speaker 1: hero when he was first elected in two thousand and seven.
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  Speaker 1: Rud says, she's China has rewritten the rules. Its economy
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  Speaker 1: is so huge it can disrupt every market, and that's
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  Speaker 1: prompting the rest of the world to react by returning
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  Speaker 1: to protectionism to try to save their local economies. But
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  Speaker 1: change is coming. China's population growth is slowing. It's no
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  Speaker 1: longer the world's most populous nation. That's now India.
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  Speaker 4: The one child policy has produced an unprecedented gender imbalance
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  Speaker 4: within the country of more than thirty million after decades
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  Speaker 4: of male preference, sex selective abortion, and female infanticide. This
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  Speaker 4: has resulted in an unofficial policy of sending large numbers
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  Speaker 4: of unmarried men to the developing world to find partners,
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  Speaker 4: build businesses, and strengthen familial ties with the motherland.
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  Speaker 1: All this is highly unusual from a diplomat.
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  Speaker 3: Cavin RD is an unusual all person to have appointed
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  Speaker 3: as an ambassador. He has a great depth of experience.
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  Speaker 3: He is a former Prime minister, he is a former
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  Speaker 3: foreign minister. He is one of the leading experts in
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  Speaker 3: the world on Chinese foreign policy. And so that means
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  Speaker 3: that Kevin was always going to take a different approach
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  Speaker 3: to this job. So I think when Anthony Alberanizi made
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  Speaker 3: that appointment, he would have known that it would have
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  Speaker 3: come with various political consequences, and he must have known
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  Speaker 3: that he would need to wear those political consequences.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. This means for Australia's relationship with China. He
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  Speaker 1: is the crux of Rudd's book. He says, Shi Shinping
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  Speaker 1: hopes that is owing topretation of Marxist ideology, a tightly
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  Speaker 1: controlled economy, a repressed population, and an aggressive form of
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  Speaker 1: nationalism can change the way the world thinks about democracy
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  Speaker 1: and human rights. Rudd says, one factor working against she
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  Speaker 1: is that he is, like the rest of us, mortal.
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  Speaker 4: He would probably have to maintain power well into his
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  Speaker 4: nineties to appoint enough ideologically reliable, younger Karters to enable
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  Speaker 4: his long term political strategy to take root.
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  Speaker 1: China is famously thin skinned and defensive. So could this
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  Speaker 1: trigger another trade war? Joe doesn't think so.
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  Speaker 3: No, I don't think there's any risk Kevin Rudd's book
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  Speaker 3: will ignite that kind of retaliation. Kevin Rudd makes the
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  Speaker 3: point that China has deliberately changed its tactical diplomacy, a
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  Speaker 3: tactical decision was taken to try and better leverage Chinese
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  Speaker 3: influence in the world, that they would shift their approach,
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  Speaker 3: but this ultimately would be directed at trying to maximize
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  Speaker 3: Chinese influence to achieve its long term strategic objectives. I
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  Speaker 3: think China will continue along that current path of normalizing
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  Speaker 3: relations because it sees that at the moment as the
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  Speaker 3: best trajectory towards its long term goals.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Keilly is The Australian's National Affairs editor. You can
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  Speaker 1: read all the best analysis of China from our own
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  Speaker 1: Will Glasgow, the only Australian correspondent resident in China right now,
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au