Australia’s Kevin Rudd on US-China Relations
NPR
20-04-15
HOST: Time Magazine just released its list of the one hundred most influential people in the world. Xi Jinping, China’s Premier, is on it. In fact, the fact that the Premier is on this exclusive list comes as no surprise to Kevin Rudd. Rudd is the former Prime Minister of Australia. He says that Xi Jinping is on track to pass Chairman Mao as China’s most powerful leader, that is within China. We’re going to look briefly now at his role on the global stage, especially with the United States. Kevin Rudd explores the US-China relationship in a new report. Rudd is senior fellow at the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Prime Minister Rudd, you write in your report, quote, “With the rise of China we are observing the geopolitical equivalent of the melting of the polar icecaps. Slowly the ice thins, cracks appear and one day a large sheet of ice spectacularly peels away.” This is a pretty vivid image, what does it mean? KEVIN RUDD: In the history of international relations, nothing is forever. And therefore, it means that when we become very familiar with the established patterns and fabric of the current global rules-based order, we sometimes assume that it’s as solid as the pack ice out there and, if you know, when pack ice melts it’s a very, very slow process and then something peels away. My reason for using that particular metaphor is that, in the case of China’s rise and its rising voice in international institutions and creating new institutions, this has been a trend unfolding for some time but recent events, of course, have made that much more dramatic in the public eye. But the bottom line is, the nature of the order is now shifting to accommodate the rise of China. The question for us all is, how will the order now evolve and how should we shape it together? HOST: And by comparing it to the melting of the icecaps, I realise that’s just an allusion on your part, but by doing that it sounds like you’re talking about a shift in tectonic plates. Is that politically what you’re referring to? KEVIN RUDD: No, I’m simply referring to something which evolves slowly and then there is some spectacular evidence as we recently saw with different government taking different positions in support or opposition to China’s proposal for an Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank. The tectonic plates, to sustain these analogies, is more to do with what’s been going on for a long, long time, if you like, beneath the icecap. And, namely, the shift in the centre of geo-economic and geo-political gravity from West to East, from Atlantic to Pacific but, increasingly in a geo-economic sense, from the United States to China. China, for example in Asia, is a greater or larger trading partner for every single country in Asia than the United States. People need to be understanding of that reality. HOST: If the United States sees a competitor in China in one specific area it seems to be militarily because there are many ways the US has supported China’s entry into international organizations, the World Trade Organization for example. What is, as you see it, the trajectory of US-China military relations? KEVIN RUDD: I think if I was the United States I would not just focus on this. Remember, what economic history and history more generally tells us is that economic power is the source of all national power. You can’t project a significant military presence in the world if your economic underpinnings are fractured, fragile or collapsing. That’s why the core priority of the Chinese government is to build a stronger economy for the future. In fact, its catchcry, its dream for China’s future by mid-century is a strong and powerful China. Secondly, on the military itself, we’ll just take defence outlays. Right now the United States would outspend China probably, in real terms, on a scale of between 3:1 and 4:1. And that is based not on Chinese statistics, its based on international calculations of what China is actually spending on defence. I think the last thing to bear in mind on the defence front is that, if we get to the 2030s and the 2040s and the Chinese are spending as much on defence outlays as America, of course the key question by then is that America has by then taken the better part of a century to acquire a whole bunch of fundamental military capabilities – on land, at sea, in the air and in space – which you don’t just click your fingers and obtain overnight. So therefore, there will still, in my judgement, by mid-century be a significant capability gap so on the military equation, the United States though to mid-century is likely to maintain close to number one. Economically, I think, the gap between the Untied States and China will widen in China’s favour. HOST: Mr Prime Minister, when you go back and forth (we should say you speak Mandarin, obviously you speak English), when you go back and forth between… KEVIN RUDD: No, I speak Australian actually. It’s quite different. HOST: Got it. When you go back and forth between Washington and Beijing, you’re a bit of an ambassador I think on both sides so what can you, what do you say when there is maybe what you think is a misunderstanding on one side or the other? What do you say to advise both sides about the other? KEVIN RUDD: The key thing to being an effective confidant of both governments is not to go on US national public radio and tell you what I say to each government privately… HOST: I didn’t say privately, necessarily. Although you can go there. KEVIN RUDD: Well private diplomacy is private diplomacy. But I think there is some wisdom in doing the following: beyond all the normal politeness of diplomatic discourse, which is always in danger of looking like a kabuki play rather than actually having anything substantive behind it, I think what is beneficial is to describe as candidly as I can, when I’m in Beijing, what are American baseline strategic attitudes towards China and the reverse, stripping all politeness away, what is the Chinese strategic calculation about the American long term capabilities and strategic intentionalities. The one other thing you can add to that is, given my conclusions as a friend of both countries and having been one for the last 35 years or so, is what can I possibly recommend politely as a friend of both countries to their governments as a way through this challenging set of circumstances, with the rise of China and America continuing as a global great power, in order to negotiate their combined futures peacefully with strategic stability and with prosperity for all. Rather than ending up, once again, repeating the sorry lessons of the history of the 19th and 20th centuries ending in conflict and war. HOST: One of the points you make in your report is this, you say, “China sees America as deeply opposed to China’s rise and driven to do whatever it takes to prevent China usurping American regional and global power.” One of your roles, I guess, is to prevent misperceptions and you clarify for the American audience reading this, the historical basis for this kind of feeling among the Chinese. Can you give us a thumbnail of that? KEVIN RUDD: The bottom-line is this: China, an ancient and continuing civilisation of some 4000 years of continuing recorded history; the United States, about 400 hundred years at least as a modern settled democracy. There are vast differences between these two civilisations and cultural traditions but China comes out of a narrative from the 1840s to the 1940s, its so-called ‘Century of Foreign Humiliation’ whereby this, once-proud, civilization found itself humiliated and subjugated by the imperial powers from the West, including for a period by the United States and then by the occupation by Japan. This has created a consciousness within China which, frankly, is very sceptical about the benign nature of foreign intentions towards its country. Add to that a few other things, including recent Chinese concerns about American defence policy in the Asia-Pacific. The Chinese approach America’s posture with some scepticism but it takes two to tango here and, frankly, what the Americans would say in response is, “well China might have concerns about we Americans and our strategic intentions.” The American underlying conclusion is that Chinese diplomacy adds up to a desire to get the United States out of Asia permanently and its alliance structure in terms of its long-term security policy presence, and for China instead to replace US influence with China’s own zone of strategic influence. I think being clear with each other about the depth of those perceptions aids the process in getting to, shall we say, a more benign framework for the future – not to solve all these problems but to manage them and, in time, reduce them. HOST: That is Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia. He is also President of the Asia Society Policy Institute.