- This is an exceptionally well informed and enlightening book by Kevin Rudd. His fluency in Mandarin and his deep understanding of the American and Chinese political elites gives his analysis immense credibility. It's comprehensive, encyclopaedic in detail, and fascinating on many levels.
- The challenge he would have undoubtedly faced was to get the right balance between the micro and the macro, and there can be no doubt he's succeeded. We don't get lost in the detail as the larger picture is constantly in sight.
- Rudd is very measured and fair. He's not reflexively anti-Chinese, as so many politicians and commentators today are. He’s no Peter Dutton (he has a brain) and he's no SMH/Age opinion writer Peter Hartcher. He’s respectful of what China under Xi Jinping has achieved, including its larger global ambitions. But he's also critical, and in fact frustrated by Xi's autocratic, take no prisoners, Marxist-Leninist reactionary obsessions.
- His facts and statistics are very up to date, including key data from late 2021. And he covers all possible subjects: economic growth, financial challenges, climate ambitions, technology futures, military expansion, foreign policy aims, the Belt and Road Initiative, Taiwan, Russia, North Korea, the UN, the global rules-based order, the democratic West, and many others.
- The key focus of Rudd's analysis is on what he calls China's Ten Concentric Circles of Interest: Staying in Power; Securing National Unity (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia); Ensuring Economic Prosperity (the New Development Concept); Environmental Sustainability; Modernising the Military; Managing China’s Neighbourhood; Securing China’s Maritime Periphery; The Belt and Road Initiative; Increasing Leverage Across Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Arctic; Changing the Global Rules-Based Order.
- China's increasing power and presence in the developing world is covered in detail. African nations don’t care much about human rights so China finds them easy to deal with. But the BRI offers loans, not grants, so debt entrapment is a constant probability. In Latin America as well.
- China is aggressively challenging the global, American-led, Western liberal-democratic model, the norms and rules of the order created after WW2, including the UN, the IMF and WHO, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and NATO.
- Trump’s trade war with China has been an unmitigated disaster for US-China relations: tariffs; investment prohibitions; visa and financial sanctions on Chinese leaders, journalists, diplomats and students; increasing naval exercises in the South China Sea; increased warships to the Taiwan Straight; a surge in arms sales to Taiwan; and Washington officials sent to Taiwan for talks (profoundly angering China).
- Biden has adopted most of Trump’s anti-China policies. The mood of Americans has changed. So relations remain in the freezer, and are highly unlikely to revert to the more productive and cooperative relationship in place prior Trump.
- Where Rudd's analysis gets fascinating is his projections for the future, particularly the next decade of Xi Jinping's likely rule. A lot will depend on the economy, which is not Xi’s strong point. Productivity is a major problem, and economic growth is likely to slow considerably, to a level of around 4% by 2025. Xi's increasing crackdowns on China's substantial private sector, in favour of state control, is becoming a significant negative.
- Xi also has an increasing cadre of enemies. Besides his 'clean out' of contrary Party voices, his antagonism to religious practice, Non Government Organisations, universities, entrepreneurs, media organisations, lawyers and young people, could come back to bite him at any time.
- Rudd offers some intriguing alternative futures for US-China relations, displaying strategic thinking of the highest quality. He offers 10 Scenarios: China succeeds in taking Taiwan with no American intervention; the US defeats China; China defeats US forces; a military stalemate occurs; China is deterred from military action by threat and diplomacy; a limited war breaks out in the South China sea; conflict develops over Japan’s claims in the East China Sea; conflict increases between China and the US over North Korea; Xi succeeds in all his ambitions without military conflict; Xi is defeated and humiliated.
- The final chapter is titled Navigating an Uncertain Future: The Case for Managed Strategic Competition. Though the general point of the final chapter is clear: cooperation, collaboration, compromise and competition, it's unfortunately frustrating and almost unreadable. It's a typical Rudd bureaucratised word salad. Throughout the book the word 'strategic' is used far too often. In this chapter it's ludicrously over-used.
(Three substantial events have occurred in 2022 after the completion of this book - Russia's invasion of Ukraine; the devastating flare-up of covid in Shanghai and Beijing and Xi's brutal enforcement of a covid-zero policy; and the China-Solomon Islands' agreement. Rudd's view on these events would definitely have been well-considered and welcome).
No comments:
Post a Comment