Kevin Rudd on his role as Ambassador | ABC 7.30
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
ABC ‘7.30’
9 MARCH 2023
Sarah Ferguson
President Xi issued an unusually blunt rebuke of the US and its allies this week. What did you make of his speech?
Kevin Rudd
You're right. It was unusual and it was blunt. In fact, I've been struggling for the last 24 hours to find a time when a Chinese paramount leader has attacked the United States by name. I think you have to go back probably to the 90s. So this is unusual. Why did he do it? In terms of his description of a strategy of containment and encirclement and pressure on China by the United States organising its allies -- that's the paraphrase of what he said -- I think part of the explanation lies in him explaining to a Chinese domestic audience that the difficulties they've been through over the last several years, particularly in the economy, and other pressures on China's growth have been partly brought about by this set of external pressures, because there's been a lot of pressure on the Chinese economy domestically. But it does also, Sarah, signal a hardening of China's overall strategic posture towards the United States.
Sarah Ferguson
So, therefore, does Australia's military alliance with the US make us a target of China if this containment that President Xi referred to does turn to conflict?
Kevin Rudd
Well, I think the bottom line is if you look carefully at China's own nuclear doctrine, for example, it is quite explicitly a doctrine of non-first use. And there's nothing in Australia's defence posture which in any way contemplates the use of weapons of mass destruction against the People's Republic of China. We don't have that capability, nor are those capabilities deployed in Australia. So I don't think that's valid. We should be much more concerned in my judgment about what happens with the North Korean nuclear program given their current testing of missiles of various categories, including long-range missiles, and of course themselves being a threshold nuclear state.
Sarah Ferguson
But let's just come back to China for a moment. Notwithstanding what you're saying about China's doctrine, as you say that language from Xi Jinping is unusual. And yes, partly directed at the domestic audience. But clearly that language -- containment, encirclement and suppression by the US -- given what's about to happen in the US with the announcement of AUKUS, does the AUKUS deal, in tying us more closely to America, potentially make us more of a target?
Kevin Rudd
That's certainly not my judgment, and the Chinese take their own nuclear doctrine seriously. I've had multiple discussions with Chinese officials on this subject over many, many years. I think the other thing to point out, though, in terms of the broader AUKUS context is this: China itself right now is building the world's largest navy. There is something like 340 surface and sub-surface combatants. And within that, 60 or 70 submarines, 12 of which I think, when I last looked, were nuclear-powered. Half of those, again, carrying ballistic missiles. Now, therefore, the strategic environment within East Asia and the West Pacific is changing because of that fact as well. And so all countries are now having to look to their national defence capabilities, whether it's Australia, through AUKUS and through the prospective submarine project, or Japan, or the Republic of Korea, or others as well.
Sarah Ferguson
Now part of what you bring to the job that you're about to take up in Washington as ambassador is an intimate knowledge of Chinese thinking. So tell me how you think the Chinese view the AUKUS pact?
Kevin Rudd
Well, in terms of going to DC, I'm going there at the request of Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong, and alsoI've got a series of established working relationships over many years now with a number of folks who currently work in the US administration. That's one thing, I'm there to represent Australian interests. But you're right, I've also done quite a bit of work on China's own political thinking and strategic thinking. Chinese long-term doctrine going back decades has been one of fairly open hostility towards the retention of any alliance structures in Asia or beyond Asia, which they regard, and have historically regarded, as relics of the Cold War era. That is, post-91 no longer warranted. Now we've never under previous Australian governments, including the Hawke and Keating governments back then, accepted that logic. We regard the alliance with the United States as part and parcel of the fabric of Australia's overall national security, particularly given we're also custodians of the world's third-largest exclusive economic zone. For those reasons we've been, I believe, acting in our national interest to secure our own territory, our own sovereignty for the future, whatever future threats we may face.
Sarah Ferguson
Now, former Labor PM Paul Keating argues, as he has done for a long time, that the US is engaged in an attempt to contain China. Do you reject that analysis?
Kevin Rudd
Look, I've got a lot of time for Paul. He and I are friends and colleagues and I respect so much of what he's done for Australia. But I think I would suggest that it's important for us also to analyse how the strategic environment in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and for that matter globally, is changing because of China's own military rise. I mean, it's one of those factors we pointed to in the Defence White Paper of 2009, when I was prime minister, that suddenly China's military expenditure and increasing military deployments, were beginning to change the strategic picture in our wider region. So therefore, the response to that from the United States, and by various US allies, including Australia, has been somewhat late in coming to be frank. And therefore we need to see both these elements as part of the equation. I think what drives US strategy, and certainly what drives, I think, Australian strategic thinking, is how do we deter our friends in China from taking premeditated military action against Taiwan, which will then be a fundamental destabilisation of the strategic status quo.
Sarah Ferguson
But just to stay with how China sees what's happening in relation to the US, there's no question that the US has been beefing up its alliances in the region with Japan, the Philippines. Tell me how the recent changes in the makeup of the region look to China?
Kevin Rudd
Well certainly from China's perspective, as I said before, for 30 years, they've opposed all forms of US alliance structures around the world. In fact, if you look carefully at China's language over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China says the continuation of NATO and NATO postures towards Ukraine and Russia reflect Cold War thinking. Well, we beg to differ. I'm sure our European friends and partners beg to differ as well. Certainly China does not welcome at all increased defenceexpenditures in Japan, in the Republic of Korea, new arrangements between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States, and of course, Australia's own decision under this government to increase defence outlays as well. And, for those reasons, there's going to be a reaction from Beijing, but the fact that China reacts of itself does not mean that the actions we've taken to sustain our own national security are invalid. As I said, China now owns the world's largest navy. It is bigger than that of the United States, 340 surface and sub-surface combatants. That's not exactly McHale's Navy.
Sarah Ferguson
The new Chinese foreign minister said yesterday that the US and China are heading towards inevitable conflict. If Washington does not change its approach. How do you explain that language? I thought the wolf-warrior diplomacy had been retired?
Kevin Rudd
Well the Foreign Minister Qin Gang is someone that I have known here in the United States -- until recently, he was China's ambassador to the United States -- and he's recently been elevated to that job. In fact, in the same press conference that he gave in Beijing, he attacked the the West's characterisation of Chinese diplomacy as having been wolf-warrior diplomacy. So why is has he used that form of words? Look, as I said before, both his statements, and those of President Xi Jinping, I think are very mindful of China's domestic challenges at present, the fact that economic growth has been very slow during 2022, that there has been a whole lot of domestic political reaction to COVID pressures as well. And so these statements need to be understood in China's domestic political context as well. At the same time, it is unusual for a Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China to point to the possible inevitability of conflict with the United States. The truth is, Sarah, the overall state of the US-China relationship is in bad strategic repair. But as Foreign Minister Wong said recently in a speech here in the United States, our job as friends, partners and allies of the United States, and as strategic partners with China, is to encourage both Beijing and Washington to move in the direction of a new strategic framework of managed strategic competition to build new strategic guardrails into their relationships so that we do not end up with a crisis, escalation and war by accident. That I think is a responsibility we share with all US allies around the world and partners of China.
Sarah Ferguson
So you're headed to Washington, for the first time in a long time where both sides of politics in Washington are equally hawkish towards China. Given your understanding of China, could you find yourself in this world in the role of peacemaker?
Kevin Rudd
Oh, God no! That's not why I'm being being sent to Washington at all! I'm being sent by the Australian Government to represent Australia's national interests. And there's a lot of work to be done. I'm there also to represent the interests of the Australian business community in the United States. And I'm also there to continue to support the implementation of the future arrangements under AUKUS, including the modernisation of the Australian submarine fleet. There are a whole range of responsibilities which I'll carry as Australian Ambassador to the United States. But one of the reasons which Prime Minister Albanese explained to me why he and the Foreign Minister asked me to do this job is because we're all anxious about the current state of great power relations in the world. And therefore, if I can play some very small role in our own dealings with the administration in Washington in helping to provide advice on how things might be stabilised in one way or another, then I'll play that small role, but only on the basis ofguidance and instructions from Canberra. That's the job of an ambassador.
Sarah Ferguson
And just finally, for some time, you've been engaged in a campaign for a royal commission into the Murdochs. Do you have to give that up when you take up this position?
Kevin Rudd
Look, I think it's very hard for me as Chair of Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission to simply say that that activity is not political. And because I'm going into a non-political role in the Australian public service as Australian Ambassador to the United States, I'm going to have to say goodbye to that role. But I'm sure that mantle will be taken up by others and I'm sure announcements to that effect will be made soon. At the same time, I'm sure my friends in the Murdoch media will continue to provide rolling character assessments of me, Thérèse, our family when we're in Washington. They've been doing it for the last 20 years and I'm sure they'll be doing it for the next 20 years as well.
Sarah Ferguson
Do you anticipate meeting Rupert Murdoch when you're in, when you get to Washington, or sometime over the next, when you take off the job?
Kevin Rudd
Well, my job as Australian ambassador is to represent the interests of Australian business. So therefore, if News Corporation walked through the door as an Australian business and wish to have their interests considered in the work of the Australian government in the United States, it's my responsibility to therefore be responsive to that. Of course, it depends whether Rupert Murdoch, in walking in the door, is being an Australian citizen or an American citizen. That's, of course, a matter of course for Mr Murdoch.
Sarah Ferguson
Somewhat diplomatic. Kevin Rudd, thank you very much for joining us.
Kevin Rudd
Good to be with you.