Review: The Avoidable War — averting a conflict between the US and China | Financial Times

By James Crabtree

Few western statesmen have enjoyed much quality time with Xi Jinping, especially as China’s president has of late retreated into pandemic-era seclusion. Kevin Rudd is one who did. “I spent a total of 10 hours in conversation with Xi in six separate meetings, including about three hours around a winter fire at the prime ministerial residence,” he writes in The Avoidable War, describing a moment back in 2010, when Xi was Chinese vice-premier and Rudd was Australia’s prime minister.

Rudd knows China too. He speaks Mandarin, having studied and worked there. Following his second stint as Australian leader in 2013, he now runs the Asia Society in New York. But he still found time recently to wrap up a doctorate at Oxford, on “Xi Jinping’s Worldview”, which now provides the underpinnings for his book.

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