An Interview with Kevin Rudd – The Diplomat

The rise of China, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic present challenges and opportunities for the Indo-Pacific region. For a perspective on these issues, Jongsoo Lee interviews Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010-2012) of Australia.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic slowed or accelerated China’s rise to power?

It is clear that COVID-19 has negatively influenced attitudes towards China around the world, not least due to government secrecy surrounding the original outbreak at the very start of the year. And it’s clear that it rattled Xi Jinpings’ leadership in ways he hadn’t expected. But it’s unlikely that it changed Xis’ core worldview much. And although China’s economy has been the hardest hit since the Cultural Revolution, it has already rebounded stronger than any other country and is going to be crucial to the economic resurgence of the rest of the world. The challenge is how they continue to manage the impact according to their own status and deal with the most significant fallout in many parts of the region and particularly in the West.

Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic, what are the main challenges for security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and beyond? And what are the solutions?

Above all: climate change. Hopefully COVID-19 will leave us with a greater propensity to tackle large and complex challenges like this, especially in our region, which is particularly sensitive to its immediate and long-term impacts. If governments are also smart about calibrating their economic response to COVID-19, there is also a chance that we may emerge from this crisis in a better position to decarbonize our economies and strengthen our climate resilience. The problem in much of the Indo-Pacific right now is that governments are tempted to short-sighted a carbon-intensive recovery as the best path rather than focusing on the transformative opportunity. which offers itself to them to reorganize their economies.

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The growing assertiveness of a rising China is a source of concern to the global community. Why is China asserting itself more and more? Are there national or international forces pushing China to assert itself more? Is China on an expansionary trajectory like Japan was in the 1930s?

Xi Jinping never subscribed to Deng Xiaopings’ philosophy of hiding his strength, biding his time, never taking the lead. His approach is much more direct and we see it through multiple manifestations. For example, Xi is clearly seeking to ensure benign and (if possible) compliant relations with China’s 14 neighboring states and six maritime neighbors. At the same time, Xi believes he needs to push the United States back to the second island chain that stretches from the Japanese archipelago in Guam to the eastern Philippines. China also wants to weaken (or sever, if possible,) the Americas’ long-standing security alliances in the region, and the ultimate goal here is to strengthen China’s ability to secure reunification with Taiwan by force, if necessary. Finally, Xi seeks to establish new markets for Chinese goods, services, technology and critical infrastructure investments through the Belt and Road Initiative, and in so doing, strengthen sensitivities and support for the main interests of China’s foreign policy with the ultimate goal of helping to reshape the world order to be more accommodating to China’s interests and values.

How can India, the United States and China’s neighbors in the Indo-Pacific work together more effectively to manage China’s rise to power?

The great challenge for democracies around the world, both in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, is to increase the sophistication of their engagement with China, including through better coordination. It may be difficult for some countries to take a stand on issues for fear of bilateral backlash, but doing so together helps alleviate this problem. Remarkably, many democracies still tend to view the challenges of their own relationship with China as unique and seek to overcome them as such. In Australia we constantly see this with the widely held perception that our country alone has angered Beijing on particular issues, when in reality we often forget that others face challenges as well and often much more. not least, with Japan trying to balance a territorial conflict within a massive economic relationship.

For the United States part, Ive written elsewhere that we’ve probably entered a new era of what I call Cold War 1.5. But the future of this relationship doesn’t necessarily have to continue to spiral down in my opinion, it can be managed strategically through agreed-upon guardrails established by both parties, or what I call managed strategic competition.

Are there things China has taken that are having positive effects on peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and beyond?

It’s important to remember that not so long ago China was a recipient of foreign aid and is now one of the largest donors in the world. Yes, there are important and legitimate concerns about how this support is often distributed, but this support has also helped countries achieve their own development goals.

It’s also worth noting the geopolitical importance of China’s climate leadership in recent years. As someone who participated in the heated negotiations in Copenhagen, I can tell you from experience how transformative this has been for the global fight against climate change. There simply wouldn’t be a Paris deal without China, and it’s China that deserves the most credit for keeping this framework together after [U.S.] President Trump has announced his intention to withdraw. What’s important now is that China continues to see the value of its climate leadership nationally and geopolitically, and that, along with all other countries, seeks to build on its Paris by target. the next United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office.

Do Australia and New Zealand have a unique role to play in promoting peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific?

Absolutely. The problem for Australia is that, while in the past we have often tried to play an active and constructive role in our region and understood the importance of our geography to our future, the current Conservative government seems determined to erode the tools. diplomats who do this is possible and continually allows their hearts and minds to be ruled by our history.

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Take for example. Australia’s aid budget: My government announced record-high increases in the face of the global financial crisis, but even before COVID-19 hit it had been reduced to an all-time high. And this month we have seen cuts to our foreign service as we announced major new investments in our defense capability. At a certain level, it may be a question of sending a signal to China, but it is not lost on other countries in the region, particularly in the Pacific Islands where we seek to be the partner of choice but also do not accept the existential risk that the climate will change pose for them.

Jongsoo Lee is Senior Managing Director of Brock Securities and a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He is also an associate member of the Pacific Forum based in Hawaii. He can be followed on Twitter at @ jameslee004