BBC: China-Australia Relations

[video width="720" height="576" mp4="https://kevinrudd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/BBC_World_News-2020-05-21_08-10-18-2.mp4"][/video]E&OE TRANSCRIPTTELEVISION INTERVIEWBBC WORLD SERVICE21 MAY 2020Topics: Coronavirus, World Health Organisation, Australia-China relationsJournalist: Australia is among the country's leading calls for an independent global investigation into China's handling of the Coronavirus. China's hit back though with the threat of some painful tariffs on Australian products amid what are growing tensions between the two countries. I speak now to one of the leading experts on China, Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia, also a Mandarin speaker, and president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. Kevin Rudd, thanks very much indeed for joining us. I just wanted to ask first of all, which China it is that we've really been seeing in action with this pandemic. We've got the who is you know, even in the last few days saying thank you for sharing with us in the world, what you've been able to do and for saying that their actions helped prevent the spread of the Coronavirus to other countries. Then on the other side of the coin, we have, whether it's the United States and to a degree your own country but others as well saying there is a direct blame on China for spreading this Coronavirus. which is the real China, do you think?Kevin Rudd: Well, my analysis of China over the last 35 years as a diplomat, and then as a Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia, is that we're always dealing with messy realities which don't fit into one box or the other. For example, what we do know is that China does have a case to answer in terms of why were wet markets not closed down in China, after the SARS disaster of 2003. Secondly, what happened in the first two to three weeks of this virus outbreak in Wuhan in terms of the delays in, shall we say local containment measures? I think the third big question for is international community is was the notification from China to the World Health Organization effective early enough? And was there any influence brought to bear on the WHO and the way in which it described the virus to the international community? They I think are the core questions. But for those attacking China politically and geopolitically to allege that this was some deliberate or accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, there's no evidence yet, either confirmed by any Western intelligence agency, no evidence yet from any credentialed epidemiologist, that that sort of causality exists. So as I said, reality is complex. It's up the middle of these two, shall we say, extreme positions?Journalist: Yeah. In which case, though, is it much use the WHO laying out the terms of some investigation, and they do seem to have been pretty sympathetic to China? Or does it need to be a more robust international investigation? And indeed, do you think that's remotely possible?Kevin Rudd: Well, you're right about the WHO itself because a number of questions have been raised about the earliness and the directness of WHO advisories to the international community. Is it right, therefore, to have Caesar judging Caesar on this question? But more broadly, WHO would say, we put out our notifications, both of a world health crisis and then after that a pandemic, and still so many countries around the world failed to take national actions early enough, in order to make the national preparations early enough to deal with it. But overall, I don't think it's right to have Caesar judging Caesar. What's the alternative approach? The alternative approach, I think, is for someone like the United Nations Secretary General to impanel, a high level panel of scientists, some from China, drawn also from the rest of the world to get to the absolute scientific answers to the questions that we were talking about before in this interview.Journalist: Right, now that brings me on to the situation regarding Australia and, of course, relations with China. There's a huge reliance on on Chinese spending, let's be honest, within the country, whether it's education, tourism, the mining sector, you name it, and I see there are some threats over meat producers at the moment. How do you resolve that spiraling downwards of tensions there? Because this Coronavirus issue is not going away.Kevin Rudd: I think it's important first for the international community to recognize and for Australians to recognize that we're not exactly Robinson Crusoe here, by which I mean that in previous periods we've had huge bilateral tensions between, say Sweden and China, earlier again between Norway and China over the Norwegian Parliament's decision to give a Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize. These things come and go. And more recently with the Canadians over various decisions by the Canadian government which the Chinese objected to. The key principle I think here is for any government advancing a proposal controversial like the one we've just been discussing on getting to the scientific basis as to what happened with the outbreak of COVID-19 is to advance that as a coalition of states -- that is Australia plus, for example, the Europeans; Australia plus, for example, the other democracies in Asia -- that way it reduces the likelihood of individual nations being singled out. But let me say, I think the stated threats by the Chinese Ambassador resident in Canberra when the Australian Government first ventilated its idea to open the possibility of Chinese retaliatory action in the economic sphere was unacceptable. Accredited ambassadors shouldn't be in the business of issuing public threats to their host governments.Journalist: Yeah, and it's attention and certainly not going away anytime soon. Kevin Rudd, thanks very much indeed for your time.Kevin Rudd: Good to be with you.