Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Talks China, New Book at IOP Forum

Kevin Rudd, Australian ambassador to the United States, said China should become self-sufficient to match other global powers at an Institute of Politics forum to promote his new book on Friday.

Rudd — a former Australian prime minister — discussed China’s economic initiative “Made in China 2025,” which aims to make the country “the world leader.”

He said China should “take preparations” for escalating conflict over Taiwan with greater investment into semiconductors and other technology sectors.

The forum, billed as a discussion of Rudd’s latest book “On Xi Jinping,” was moderated by both Harvard Kennedy School Professor Graham Allison ’62 and Harvard Law School Professor Mark Wu ’95, the director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Before he was elected to the Australian Parliament in 1998, Rudd worked as an Australian diplomat in Beijing. At the forum, Rudd argued that China’s foreign and economic policies have changed because Xi is what he called a “Marxist-Leninist nationalist.”

Rudd said Xi believes “the forces of historical change” predict “an outcome where China will be triumphant as an historical determinist.”

He also said Xi’s personal approach to politics has made the country more aggressively nationalist.

“Ideology has been used as a vehicle by successive Chinese political leaders to define the band of meaning within which policy and political discourse can occur,” Rudd said.

He attributed changes in China to “a decision by Xi Jinping to readjust the center of gravity of Chinese politics towards the Leninist left.”

Rudd — a frequent panelist at IOP forums — said he wrote the book because he got questions from politicians in Washington about how to understand Xi and his influence on Chinese politics.

“One of the things I’m most often asked by international, political, and corporate leaders is this: ‘How is Xi Jinping changing China?’ And then, most importantly, parallel to that, ‘Why?’” Rudd said.

Asked by an attendee about the likelihood of outright conflict between China and the U.S., Rudd said there was room to be optimistic.

“This is where you get into all sorts of trouble, so let me try to navigate it carefully and then get into some trouble,” he responded. “Nothing in this business of international relations is inevitable.”

Instead, Rudd said that even with the risk of military escalation, the two countries can cooperate on trade and issues like climate change.

“What I call managed strategic competition is a credible way forward,” Rudd said.

He argued the two countries should focus on reducing the risk of “conflict and war by accident, as opposed to by design.”

While Rudd focused on Xi’s influence, he also praised the country’s historical record and predicted a pattern of continued growth.

“There is quite a remarkable record of policy success in terms of what happened,” Rudd said. “This is material, it’s measurable, and it’s there.”