In this special episode, Andrew Mueller sits down with the former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, to discuss the volatile relationship between superpowers China and the United States, the possibility of a catastrophic war between them – and how to avert such a conflict – and what he learned during his lengthy meetings with Xi Jinping.

Western powers should avoid delivering “stern moral lectures” to Pacific island states about their deepening ties with China and instead offer alternative development proposals, the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has said.

Kevin Rudd speaks to the Asia Group podcast, The Tea Leaves.

Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia, says the new Australian government has a “deep interest” in renewing engagement with Pacific nations particularly in providing aid and taking action on climate change.

Australians voted for change on May 21 in a historic election that replaced almost a decade of conservative rule with Anthony Albanese and an Australian Labor Party-led government. Under Albanese’s predecessor, Scott Morrison, relations between Australia and its biggest trading partner, China, had reached a low ebb.

Between China and the United States, Kevin Rudd tells me, is an alarming static of incomprehension, mistrust and bad faith. Direct channels of communication are negligible to non-existent, diplomacy largely exhausted.

Kevin Rudd on the Project on 19 May.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a political leader who wore his faith publicly.

Of course, he's also an expert on China and China's place in the world. His latest book is The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping's China.

We asked him about the future of religious discrimination legislation in Australia, his personal faith, and whether the role of faith in China presents a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party.

You can feel it in the air right across Australia – the mood for change is real. After close to ten long years in office, the people of Australia are fed up to the back teeth with Morison’s Liberals.

The former Australian prime minister talks about the extraordinary personal chemistry between Xi and Putin, the reality checks slowly working their way through the Chinese system, and the realist framework that just might work for both the U.S. and China.

The rise of a strong and confident China has had more implications for Australia than perhaps any other advanced country apart from the United States, as evidenced by the ongoing public debate over the impact of China’s new bilateral security agreement with the Solomon Islands.

Kevin Rudd is in conversation with Julie Bishop on his new book, The Avoidable War. The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China, in which the former Prime Minister of Australia, and deeply knowledgeable China watcher, proposes a way forward for the US and China to avoid a superpower conflict. Kevin Rudd offers a chilling vision of what that might look like if it was unleashed.

My personal encounter with the Murdoch media while out campaigning with Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah, the Labor candidate for Higgins. The Murdoch mob don’t like it when you dish it back to them.

If Xi Jinping was hoping for an uneventful and stable 2022 before his planned “re-election” this fall, he must be disappointed. In January I wrote that “China’s economic future isn’t looking all that bright and is starting to have political implications for President Xi Jinping.” That turned out to be an understatement.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gives his take on the Federal Election campaign and weighs in on China’s expansionism.

The clearest example is the ABC’s budget. Despite a crystal-clear election promise in 2013 of “no cuts to the ABC”, the national broadcaster is facing $1.2bn of cumulative cuts over a decade. These cuts have felled two television programs that were crucial to government accountability, Lateline and the state-based 7.30 program (once known as Stateline), among many others.

The Avoidable War demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls "managed strategic competition". Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that would rewrite the future of both countries, our region, and the world.

The relationship between the U.S. and China has reverberating consequences around the world. The ties between the two superpowers rests on a seismic fault—of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility.

Join former Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd, as he explores what a superpower conflict in Australia’s region might look like, and proposes a way forward to avoid it. Kevin Rudd has become one of today’s most thoughtful analysts of China’s development and in his latest book “The Avoidable War” he offers real insight into the mindsets of leaders whose judgments will determine if a war will be fought.