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Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shared his views on the People’s Republic of China, deterrence, what the PRC wants to change and understanding leader Xi Jinping’s worldview.
Former PM and former US Ambassador Rudd made the comments during a discussion with Harvard scholar Graham Allison at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics earlier this month.
Rudd has previously spoken at the Harvard Kennedy School, and follows up with the most recent discussion about strategic competition, China’s changing economic model, deterrence and the People’s Republic of China in general.
The former PM argues that the PRC’s ambitions are forecast to extend well beyond its own economic national rejuvenation, but stretches further into regional security architecture, domination of entire industrial and technological ecosystems (AI, aerospace, bio-tech), there in shaping the global order.
“National rejuvenation, if you’re the leadership of China, is a perfectly legitimate objective, given China’s recent economic and political history: centuries of division, centuries of weakness, and many centuries of poverty and acute poverty,” he said.
“If you compare the lot of a poor peasant in rural Hunan at the time of the civil war in the late ’40s with that person’s life today, you’d say, ‘My lot has improved considerably.’ That’s point one.
“Two: Xi Jinping is not a status quo leader. He wishes to resolve the fundamental unresolved question of geopolitics, which is reunification with Taiwan. That’s clear from his declaratory statements. Similarly, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the disputed islands with Japan, the disputed islands with Korea, and the Sino-Indian border.
“These are not status quo propositions. These are changing boundaries. Once you change boundaries by military force or the threat of military force, reactions ensue.
“Beyond that, China’s declaratory policy is also that the US system of security alliances in the world, both in Europe and certainly in the Indo-Pacific, are outdated relics of the Cold War and should be dismantled. That’s not the view among the allies, by the way, but that is China’s desire to change the security architecture in the region.
“Furthermore, China is now the dominant economic power by a country mile across the Indo-Pacific, and second only to the United States in terms of aggregate military capabilities. That’s a measurable empirical fact.
“The final element is the future of the order writ large. Study carefully the foundational documents Xi Jinping has released over the last decade: the Global Civilization Initiative, Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Governance Initiative, and, if you want some infrastructure, the Belt and Road Initiative.
“All have a common principle: a new global order which increasingly has China at its centre, with Chinese interests and values more respected at its centre.”
The former PM argues that preventing a war with the PRC requires credible deterrence shaped to convince Beijing leadership that attempting to reunify Taiwan by force would be too risky. This deterrence is mutual, with the PRC also hoping to deter the US and Taiwan from unilaterally changing Taiwan’s political status.
In regard to Australia, this would require the Australian Defence Force to maintain credible combat capability, resilient supply chains to sustain combat operations and readiness in manufacturing to replenish critical capabilities during a prolonged crisis.
“It’s old-fashioned, but if you accept the reality of strategic competition and unresolved security dilemmas such as Taiwan, the essential ingredient is the three Ds: deterrence, deterrence, deterrence,” he said.
“We may be critics of what has happened in the nuclear domain since Hiroshima, but deterrence has worked across the better part of 80 years. This is no small thing.
“(In a shaving mirror test, we say) I’m Xi Jinping. I’m having a shave in the morning and looking in the mirror, thinking: Taiwan, can I resolve this militarily? Simultaneously, we’d like the little voice in the left ear or the right ear saying, “Not yet, comrade. It’s still too risky.” That’s what deterrence is.
“As soon as you reach a point where you conclude that a matter can be resolved unilaterally militarily, deterrence has failed.
“In maintaining peace and stability, which is core to everything else, the concept of deterrence is mutual.
“It is not just American and allied deterrence against China changing the map militarily in Taiwan and the rest of East Asia. That is one aspect. The Chinese term for deterrence is also mutually applicable: China deterring the United States and those on Taiwan from unilaterally changing Taiwan’s political status. It’s a mutual concept.”
In conclusion, Mr Rudd details his understanding China’s leadership and strategic thinking influenced by the PRC’s historical understanding of its place in the world, Marxist-Leninist ideology and the belief that state direction can accelerate China’s rise.
“When you ask why country X did this to country Y, there is rarely a single answer. We need to reflect on that reality,” he said.
“(On PRC leader Xi Jinping) he is a Chinese leader, deeply animated by a historical worldview of China’s place at home, in the region and in the world.
“If you’re a student of Chinese historiography, from the classical historians of Sima Qian down to the present, there is a notion of China’s intrinsic greatness in its history and its civilisational continuity. Is that a factor in China’s contemporary political psychology? Of course it is. That’s the reality.
“There’s a second driving factor, which is why I wrote on Xi Jinping’s ideological worldview: he’s a Marxist-Leninist too. For people who think Marxism-Leninism and ideology don’t matter in China, they haven’t quite got the memo. Xi Jinping would spend probably 20 per cent of his time on ideological questions, judging by the totality of his writings on these questions.
“Within Marxism-Leninism, what does it mean? A view of historical materialism, dialectical materialism, about the machinery of change in the world. These are not cosmetic, post facto constructions, but represent a belief structure about China’s inexorable rise through this machinery of history. That’s part of his driving mechanism as well.
“Thirdly, he’s a pragmatic strategic leader who understands: my God, we’ve got Iran happening at the moment. What the hell am I going to do about it? Do I help the United States? Do I not? They created this problem at their own hands. What happens if I seek to intervene? Is it better that I don’t?
“He’s a very pragmatic political leader as well. When I look at his posture and that of the system over which he presides; as Graham said, he’s the chairman of everything, he is an amalgam of these traditions, including the realism of the moment.”
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