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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, October sixteen.
Speaker 1: Anthony Albanezi says he's in politics for the long haul
Speaker 1: after the opposition suggested his purchase of a four point
Speaker 1: three million dollar beach house suggests he's planning for life
Speaker 1: after the lodge. The Greens have attacked the purchase, coming
Speaker 1: as Australians struggle with the cost of housing. A gold
Speaker 1: mine proposed for Waddery Country in New South Wales was
Speaker 1: blocked after activists cited as evidence an artwork of a
Speaker 1: blue banded bee, but now links between the activists and
Speaker 1: the artists are emerging. Those stories alive now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot a you. Kevin rad says the
Speaker 1: US and Australia must deter China's Shishinping from invading Taiwan
Speaker 1: with catastrophic consequences. Today a provocative book by a very
Speaker 1: unusual diplomat. Well the BJ you are, You're a chump.
Speaker 1: Well how's you get by one hundred bay light way in.
Speaker 1: This is Kevin brad Way back in twenty eleven, doing
Speaker 1: a bit of a humble brag about his ability to
Speaker 1: speak Mandarin. He says, my Mandarin is very bad. It's
Speaker 1: getting worse and worse. I'm one hundred percent of foreigner,
Speaker 1: so I don't understand many Chinese characters. The host asks
Speaker 1: if you'd compare himself to famous Chinese leader Dang Zhao Ping,
Speaker 1: who returned multiple times to the leadership. This was in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. Remember when Julia Gillard had deposed Rudd and
Speaker 1: Rudd was cooling his heels as Foreign Minister. Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: chortles Rudd. Dung is a hugely influential figure who's changed
Speaker 1: the world. I'm just an Australian politician. Na shall rush
Speaker 1: for brother?
Speaker 2: Sure that done?
Speaker 1: Joping Pasha Tungwar. Rud did, of course come back again,
Speaker 1: knifing Guillard to become PM and lead Labor to defeat
Speaker 1: at the twenty thirteen election. He's not just your average politician.
Speaker 1: Rudd has been an academic and a diplomat, writing a
Speaker 1: pH d thesis on China's present leader Shi Shinping. Now
Speaker 1: he's Australia's ambassador to the United States, and he's turned
Speaker 1: that thesis into a book in a very undiplomatic kind
Speaker 1: of way. Rudd's thesis is that she has fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: China and must now be deterred from invading Taiwan.
Speaker 2: He argues, the danger period is now.
Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's National Affairs editor. He's reporting
Speaker 1: from Washington, DC, and he obtained an early copy of
Speaker 1: Rudd's new book.
Speaker 2: The danger period will last as long as Xijinping is
Speaker 2: in power. This is an extremely hawkish interpretation of Xijinping
Speaker 2: and his influence on China, and the case that Kevin
Speaker 2: Rudd makes is that there isn't sufficient appreciation of Xijinping's
Speaker 2: ideological worldview and how that worldview has influenced all aspects
Speaker 2: of Chinese society.
Speaker 1: Rudd says she isn't just another leader. He says the
Speaker 1: force of his personality and the totalitarian control of China
Speaker 1: is so great that he has fundamentally shifted the behavior
Speaker 1: of that nation. The biggest risk, Rudd says, is that
Speaker 1: she will invade Taiwan and fundamentally shake the world.
Speaker 2: He says, if Xijinping is successful in reclaiming Taiwan, that
Speaker 2: his position will then be unassailable. Then the US will
Speaker 2: go into a period of global decline, and from that
Speaker 2: moment the path of world affairs will irrevocably change.
Speaker 3: War whatever its outcome, would generate death and destruction at
Speaker 3: an unimaginable scale. It would also redefine Chinese, American and
Speaker 3: global politics and geopolitics in deeply unpredictable yet indelible ways.
Speaker 2: However, if Jijinping fails, if he launches an attempt to
Speaker 2: retake Taiwan and fails, this will be seen as a
Speaker 2: moment of humiliation for him, a repudiation of his own beliefs,
Speaker 2: and a letdown for China generally. He also says that
Speaker 2: if the United States and it's allies can engineer a
Speaker 2: situation where the stakes are seen to be too high
Speaker 2: for Jijinping to risk an attempt to reclaim Taiwan, it's
Speaker 2: unlikely that Jijinping's successor would try to take the island territory,
Speaker 2: and I think that is the trajectory Kevin Rudder is
Speaker 2: hoping will unfold in real time.
Speaker 3: She's intention is not just to change China. It is
Speaker 3: also to change the international order itself, underpinned by an
Speaker 3: increasingly powerful China as the emerging geopolitical and geoeconomic fulcrum
Speaker 3: of that order.
Speaker 1: Geoeconomic fulcrum is a classic Ruddism. It was this brand
Speaker 1: of hyper articulate, folksy geekdom that made an unlikely popular
Speaker 1: hero when he was first elected in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Rud says, she's China has rewritten the rules. Its economy
Speaker 1: is so huge it can disrupt every market, and that's
Speaker 1: prompting the rest of the world to react by returning
Speaker 1: to protectionism to try to save their local economies. But
Speaker 1: change is coming. China's population growth is slowing. It's no
Speaker 1: longer the world's most populous nation. That's now India.
Speaker 3: The one child policy has produced an unprecedented gender imbalance
Speaker 3: within the country of more than thirty million after decades
Speaker 3: of male preference, sex selective abortion, and female infanticide. This
Speaker 3: has resulted in an unofficial policy of sending large numbers
Speaker 3: of unmarried men to the developing world to find partners,
Speaker 3: build businesses, and strengthen familial ties with the motherland.
Speaker 1: All this is highly unusual from a diplomat.
Speaker 2: Cavin RD is an unusual all person to have appointed
Speaker 2: as an ambassador. He has a great depth of experience.
Speaker 2: He is a former Prime minister, he is a former
Speaker 2: foreign minister. He is one of the leading experts in
Speaker 2: the world on Chinese foreign policy. And so that means
Speaker 2: that Kevin was always going to take a different approach
Speaker 2: to this job. So I think when Anthony Alberanizi made
Speaker 2: that appointment, he would have known that it would have
Speaker 2: come with various political consequences, and he must have known
Speaker 2: that he would need to wear those political consequences.
Speaker 1: Coming up. This means for Australia's relationship with China. He
Speaker 1: is the crux of Rudd's book. He says, Shi Shinping
Speaker 1: hopes that is owing topretation of Marxist ideology, a tightly
Speaker 1: controlled economy, a repressed population, and an aggressive form of
Speaker 1: nationalism can change the way the world thinks about democracy
Speaker 1: and human rights. Rudd says, one factor working against she
Speaker 1: is that he is, like the rest of us, mortal.
Speaker 3: He would probably have to maintain power well into his
Speaker 3: nineties to appoint enough ideologically reliable, younger karters to enable
Speaker 3: his long term political strategy. To take root.
Speaker 1: China is famously thin skinned and defensive, so could this
Speaker 1: trigger another trade war? Joe doesn't think so.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think there's any risk Kevin Rudd's book
Speaker 2: will ignite that kind of retaliation. Kevin Rudd makes the
Speaker 2: point that China has deliberately changed its tactical diplomacy. A
Speaker 2: tactical decision was taken to try and better leverage Chinese
Speaker 2: influence in the world, that they would shift their approach,
Speaker 2: but this ultimately would be directed at trying to maximize
Speaker 2: Chinese influence to achieve its long term strategic objectives. I
Speaker 2: think China will continue along that current path of normalizing
Speaker 2: relations because it sees that at the moment as the
Speaker 2: best trajectory towards its long term goals.
Speaker 1: Joe Keilly is The Australian's National Affairs editor. You can
Speaker 1: read all the best analysis of China from our own
Speaker 1: Will Glasgow, the only Australian correspondent resident in China right
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au