[Lecture] Kevin Rudd: U.S. - China Relations, North Korea & the Future of the Global Order

your excellencies distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore it is my pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon's public lecture by the Honorable Kevin Rudd Australia's prime minister from 2:07 2 to 10 and then to 13 and also the foreign minister from 2012 2010 to 2012 my name is commune foam and I'm the leak hashing professor of political science in the school offering courses on American foreign policy international relations of the asia-pacific we are living in interesting times the global order often seen as the us-led rules-based international order is under stress the trauma administration's America's first agenda is seen by many as ending the very economic rules championed historically by the United States as a result recent tariffs imposed by the administration on China the European Union Canada and Mexico a global trade wall looms Australia is interestingly exempted I think on the security front China has risen to a point where it has the resources to question and to challenge us predominance in the Asia or Indo Pacific pick whichever one you like political scientists call this power transition politics and many of us in Southeast Asia have been feeling the top and pool of the two great powers for some time now to be sure there's a bright spot or two just two weeks ago President Donald Trump and Kim jong-un descended on Singapore to take the first baby steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula The Economist magazine declared that Kim Jong won that he got the Equality of treatment he wanted so dearly from a sitting American president and that Trump lost because nothing Kri came out of the meeting but I think for some of this unbalance it was probably better to have the meeting than not and time will tell if it was a success for both parties and for the wall so what's the future of the global order I can think of no better thinker Statesman to help us grapple with this issue that mr. rod as Prime Minister he let Australia's response during the global financial crisis and he also helped found the g20 in 2015 he led a review of the UN system as chair of the Independent Commission on multilateralism he's also the Asia society's policy Institute's inaugural president as well as having held distinguished fellowships from many of the world's most illustrious research and academic institutions from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to London's Chatham House to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC mr. Rath as many of you know is also deeply engaged with Asia an Asian institutions he serves on the International Advisory Board of the Schwartzman Scholars Program a Ching hua university and his honorary professor at Peking University and last but not least he's a superb Mandarin speaker if you haven't seen his chinese new year greetings to his friends in flawless Mandarin assuring in the year of the dog I recommend it highly it is a smashing hit and you can see on YouTube mr. rod has agreed to speak to us for about half an hour and we'll have another half an hour or so for Q&A allow me now then to invite mr. Kevin Rudd to share with us his reflections on us-china relations North Korea and the future of the global order afternoon thank you that very warm welcome professor and it's good to see so many friends and colleagues from the Academy and from Singapore who I've got to know after so many years I'd like to particularly on a an acknowledge professor Wong Gong Wu who was a distinguished professor at the Australian National University when I was a slightly irritating snotty nosed undergraduate there many many years ago one Gong Wu was an enormous contributor to the development of psychology at our principal university focusing on Asia and your scholarship generally Gong Wu is of true world standards so it's good to see you here today my friend it's good to be back in Singapore I've been here so many times over the years it's kind of a bit of a second home and as is a Lee Kuan Yew school itself and the work that you do here is an important contribution to public policy and of course to the study of Asia and of course to the study of international relations three days ago the Chinese Communist Party concluded its central work conference on Foreign Affairs the second since Xi Jinping became general secretary of the party and chairman of the Central Military Commission back in October of 2012 the last one of these conferences was held in November of 2014 these conferences are not everyday affairs in the party's deliberations on the great questions of China's unfolding global engagement these conferences are major authoritative gatherings of the entire leadership designed to synthesize China's official analysis of international trends and assess how China should anticipate and respond to them in the prosecution of its own national interests this conference like the last one was presided over by Xi Jinping himself it was attended by all seven members of the Standing Committee the Politburo as well as ex officio member juandcha Shan the vice president together with all other 18 members of the regular Politburo in addition to everybody who is anybody in the entire Chinese foreign security military economic trade finance cyber and intelligence community as well as the central think-tank community as well it's a meeting that's meant to be known by the entire Chinese international policy establishment because if there is to be any new directive concerning China's place in the world it's likely to be found somewhere in Xi Jinping's 3000 character report to this conference of course the entire deliberations of the conference are not made public three and a half years ago only a selected part of it was broadcast and reported in the central media the same this time as well and unlike in Washington the Chinese system does not leak every 12 hours so we have to guess there is therefore and often hazardous exercise in reading the tea leaves in interpreting what it all means discerning what is in you discerning what is new ish and what is not new at all nonetheless what we can discern from this conference that might eliminate the subject I've been asked to address here this evening in Singapore on us-china relations North Korea and the future of the global order is I think important the truth is a foreign policy work conference of the party center has a much broader focus and the subject of my lecture this evening because it deals in grand historical ideological and political themes outlining the overall thrust of the country's future role in the world but because these conferences are major events in the foreign policy life of the country and they involve the entire leadership and because it only happened a few days ago and without prior notice with your indulgence I thought it was better to spend some time this evening working through the contents of this particular conference it sets the overall framework for any discussion of detailed policy including on us-china relations including on the careers including of course on the DPRK and its nuclear program of course I'm happy to pursue any detailed questions on those subjects in the discussion that will follow so what is new in this conference that's just been held how does the 2018 work conference on foreign policy in Beijing compare with the last one which was held in 2014 and what does all that mean the 2014 central policy work conference on foreign policy represented in my argument the formal official funeral of Donghae pings international policy dictum of the previous 30 years of hide your strength bide your time never take the lead Taiwan yang Wei Jia bohdanka it also heralded the beginning of a new period of confident independent international policy activism by Beijing in part this change reflected Xi Jinping's greater centralization of political power within the Chinese system in part have reflected the Chinese systems deep conclusion that American global power was in relative decline and the United States would not confront China militarily if China's sought to expand its regional military presence in part it also reflected a Chinese institutional conclusion that China had finally become an indispensable global economic power to most countries in the world there Bo therefore enabling China to begin to project its economic influence bilaterally regionally and also multilaterally it was also an expression of Xi Jinping's personal leadership temperament which is impatient with the incremental bureaucratese 'm endemic to the chinese system and with which the international community had become relaxed comfortable and thoroughly accustomed for those who follow these events closely and have written on the importance of this significant departure from China's traditional strategic framework dating from the 2014 conference a number of developments since then have been illustrative of this overall change in the style and the content and the direction of China's international policy approach China worked overtime in 2014-16 for example to expand its to expand its military position in the South China Sea with a rapid program of Island reclamation China took the idea of the New Silk Road and turned it into a multi trillion dollar trade investment infrastructure and wider geopolitical and geo-economic initiative engaging 68 different countries across much of Eurasia Africa and Beyond China in this period signed up most of the developed world in the large-scale non Britain woods multilateral Development Bank called the Asian infrastructure investment bank the a double IB capitalized it and launched it so that now has a balance sheet already approaching the size of the ADB China has also become for the first time a multilateral diplomatic activist launching diplomatic initiatives of its own beyond its own immediate sphere of strategic interest here in the East Asian hemisphere as well as actively participating in other initiatives such as the jcpoa on Iran rather than declining to reach beyond its own narrowly defined core national interests as we've often seen in the past China is now developed naval bases in Sri Lanka Pakistan and now Djibouti the latter with some 5,000 troops from the PLA stationed there as well as participating in naval exercises with the Russians in the Sea of Japan the Mediterranean and even the Baltic and now in the most recent National People's Congress in March of this year we had the decision to establish China's first-ever international development agency to manage China's burgeoning aid programs across the developing world of course these leave to one side the activities of Chinese state financial institutions other Chinese SOE s as well as Chinese mixed investment funds operating on every continent and now in every region of the world it would be wrong analytically to say that all these suddenly began after the 2014 central foreign policy work conference some began in the two years before then after she first became general secretary in late 2012 and some have their antecedents in the late who Jintao period as well but my point here is that they all either began were intensified or else were formally publicly legitimized by the conclusions of the last work conference people often respond to my speeches that way I would prefer more fanfare so that's possible in short the system was given the mandate to contest assert and where possible to lead in the various councils of the world and this was new radically new radically different from the past furthermore anyone who continues to entertain the fanciful idea which I still see sometimes in Western commentary that these changes are not the product of a well-considered Chinese grand strategy in my judgment is simply choosing to ignore the clear evidence of clearly defined policy purpose systematically at work in the field our Chinese friends and my experience think things through carefully they observe carefully not just what is happening in the headlines which is the permanent obsession of the Western political establishment but what is happening in what Xi Jinping would describe as the underlying historical trends in international relations and then after a period of detailed internal reflection consideration and where necessary consensus building within the system a new direction is set that's the Chinese way of doing things we've seen it in so many branches of policy that indeed is what these foreign policy central work conferences are about they sum up where the system has got to in its analysis and then what the system intends to do about it it's part of the rolling system of policy analysis implementation and review that characterizes the entire Chinese public policy system both foreign and domestic it is both one of the great strengths of the Chinese system but also one of its great weaknesses if the conclusions reached proved to be analytically flawed or unsustainable in practice it takes a lot to turn the Chinese ship of state around once the course has been set from the top so what changes with the 2018 foreign policy work conference is it more of the same or simply an intensification of the trajectory or a change in content in tone the answer is all of the above a blend of continuity and change let me run through five areas the first a new role for the party and ideology in foreign policy the press reporting of the conference asserts the absolute centrality of the party to the country's foreign policy mission this course is not entirely new but the emphasis on the role of the party is much stronger than before in the recent past the country's international policy establishment liked it see Connick rats have seen themselves and have been seen by the Chinese political establishment as a technocratic elite that is now changing in foreign policy as much it as has already changed in economic policy this is part of a broader trend in Xi Jinping's China whose focus is to rehabilitate the party from moral death from corruption on the one hand and practical death from policy of relevance on the other she has been concerned that the party had become marginal to the country's major policy debates given the technocratic complexity to most of the country's contemporary challenges that is why for example we now see a revitalization of theory of a practice a reassertion the power of the major institutions of the party over the major institutions of the state and once again a reassertion of political ideology over mere technocratic Policy Xi Jinping does not intend presiding over the party's death by a thousand cuts as it contends with a range of unfolding political forces unleashed by a combination of the market economy social liberalisation and foreign influence no Xi Jinping intends for the party to defy the trendline of Western history to see off fukuyama's end of history and the inevitable triumph of Western Liberal Democratic capitalism in order to preserve in Xi Jinping's mind a linen estate for the long term as the most effective means of ensuring that China prevails in its domestic and economic and international challenges that is why there is lengthy treatment in this conference on to use the language of the Xinhua report and I quote it upholding the authority of the CPC Central Committee as the overarching principle and strengthening the centralized unified leadership of the party on external work unquote in case you miss the emphasis Xi Jinping also states in the same report diplomacy represents the will the state and diplomatic power must stay with the CPC Central Committee while external work is a systematic project unquote she also calls for and I quote him again implementing reform of the institutions and mechanisms concerning Foreign Affairs under the decision of the central party leadership and enhancing party building and institutions abroad so as to form a management mechanism catering to the requirements of the new era the conference emphasized that China's diplomacy would now be quote a diplomacy of socialism with Chinese characteristics unquote and as such would take Xi Jinping thought from the domestic to the foreign policy domain in the past this language of socialism with Chinese characteristics applied to the overall Chinese ideological system usually interpreted as China's own form of state capitalism but now it's being applied to diplomacy and it infers I believe something else it seems to mean conforming diplomacy within a wider ideological worldview which lies beyond the simple policy pragmatism we have seen for decades guarding most elements of Chinese foreign policy in the prosecution of China's national interests there now seems to be a new national and/or global vision that sits above the simple maximization of national interests this seems more than the routine incantations of the China dream from woman or the party's centenary objectives for 2021 and the national centenary mission for 2049 with which we have become familiar since Xi Jinping came to power at this stage this new overarching ideological mission may be in Ko hate but the fact that it is as yet not fully formed does not mean that it does not exist but there lest there be any doubt on this count the ranking foreign policy technocratic tending the work conference former foreign minister and state councilor Yang Jiechi and now director of the foreign policy office of the Party Central Committee refers explicitly to the ideological significance of the conference that's just been held it's worth quoting young dear cheers remarks at the conference at some length he states that the most important outcome of this conference is and I quote him it established the guarding position of Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy is an important part of Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era it is a major theoretical achievement and the thoughts on state governance in the area of diplomacy by the CPC Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping at the core and a fundamental guideline for China's external work in the new era we should now integrate our thoughts and actions into general secretary Xi Jinping's important address and Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy and make new advances in China's external work now to an international foreign policy audience all this may sound just a little too arcane that's because in the internal ideological deliberations of a one-party state it is arcane but we would be blind not to see that there is something new at play here it is unclear whether this means Chinese foreign policy is likely to become more Marxist in its conceptualization or even in its execution or whether it's likely to become more nationalist whether it will seek to become more actively promoting of the Chinese development model of authoritarian capitalism as a model for the world in competition with the liberal democratic capitalism of the West or whether it is a much more unformed worldview which will ultimately take shape around Xi Jinping's as yet deliberately vague concept of a global community of common destiny which is now the subject of intense work within China's think-tank community and with the international academic community or whether it is something more mechanistic than that altogether involving a desire simply to fire up China's current diplomatic establishment into a more invigorated imaginative creative even forceful effort to shape the future global rules-based order more in China's image rather than China being the permanent price taker for rules already determined elsewhere and by others particularly where elements of the existing order are seen to represent a continuing and unwelcome challenge to the legitimacy of China's domestic political order for example in areas such as the rule of law human rights and democracy a second change in this worth conference what I described is a new ideological confidence that history now favors China it is she's deeply Marxist dialectical materialist view of history based on permanently evolving contradictions between what dialectician is called thesis antithesis and synthesis that you see evidenced also in this conference in Xi Jinping's view this dialectical materialist view of history gives rise to define laws of historical development that are both prescriptive and predictive now this may sound like old fashioned Marxism that's because it is the intellectual software of generations of Chinese leaders has been shaped by this conceptual framework for interpreting and responding to what they define as objective reality and Xi Jinping belongs to that tradition remember he has already convened special study sessions of the Politburo on understanding both dialectical and historical materialism in the past according to the conference report quote Xi Jinping suggested to not only observe the current international situation but also review the past summarized historical laws and look towards the future to better understand the trend of history furthermore according to the same report in Xinhua to obtain quote an accurate understanding of the overall situation Xi Jinping underlined not only observation of detailed phenomenon but also a deep appreciation of the essence of the overall situation in order not to get lost in complexity and the changing international situation xi Jinping concludes on this count stating that throughout human history the development of the world has always been the result of contradictions intertwining into reacting with each other once again all this will seem more than a little arcane but in the ideological dialect of the Chinese Communist Party it seems to mean several things first that there is nothing random about what is unfolding in the world today second these reflect certain immutable laws of political and economic development third the business of Chinese foreign policy is to use this dialectical prism to understand precisely what is happening in the world today why it is happening and what to do about it and fourth applying these disciplines to the current period it means that the global order is at a turning point with the relative decline of the US and the West and with this coinciding with the fortuitous national international circumstances currently enabling China's rise to use Xi Jinping's own language he says this has been the best period of development since modern times while the world is undergoing the most profound and unprecedented changes in a century adding that and I quote him these two aspects are intertwined and interact with each other that is the relative changes and tipping point in the global order and China's rise Xi Jinping refers to the current period as a period of unprecedented strategic opportunity for China and the current mission of the party although this of itself is not a new term Xi Jinping says the party's mission is to extend the life of this period and to do this he calls for the party to engage in in-depth analysis of the law quote unquote of how the international situation changes as the world comes into this transitional period as well as developing an accurate grasp of the basic characteristics of the external environment China is facing at this historical juncture in order to better plan and facilitate the country's work on foreign affairs unquote in other words removed from all the dialect what is being said here is in the view of the leadership China now has the wind at its back of course there are formidable obstacles ahead but a dialectical analysis of history causes China's leadership to conclude that the forces of reaction facing the US and the West are much greater and more difficult and problematic than those facing China just as the contradictions operating domestically within the US and within the West particularly in their political systems are greater as well which in turn renders China's overall domestic and international circumstances much better by comparison in the emerging contest between the two all of which again in this particular view pushes towards a new historical synthesis which is more in China's favor and indeed in favor of China's own particular form of socialism now you will all be forgiven if you think all this sounds more like medieval theology than modern international relations I apologize for that and it's anyone's guess what any of this actually will have to do with concrete foreign policy reality but we often forget that how a one-party state in particular a Marxist state chooses to id8 reality actually matters it's how the system speaks to itself it's the political lingua franca among political and policy elites and the important thing here is that the message from Xi Jinping to his international policy elite gathering in Beijing is one of great confidence but not just because China wills it to be thus but because from a marxist theoretical perspective which in their view articulate certain immutable laws of political and economic development the forces of history are now with China furthermore this is a call to greater international policy activism rather than retrenchment given the rise of Trump in other words the conclusion is that the great trends of history or to use an old Soviet turn the overall correlation of forces are steadily moving China's way a third change towards a more sharply focused Chinese diplomacy this third element of the 2018 work conference is its injunction to the country's international policy institutions and personnel to get with the seat Xi Jinping project xi Jinping seems to have the foreign ministry in his sights when he says that quote the reform of the institutions and mechanisms concerning Foreign Affairs is the internal demand of advancing modernization in the state governance system and governance capabilities if we recall from above that party building within the country's foreign policy institutions are to be a core part of the future on personnel Xi Jinping reminds the nation's diplomats are there first and foremost party cadres Gumble this has a certain ideological retro to it all indeed it's been a long time since I've heard Chinese diplomats refer to their seniors as cadres I'll gamble in fact I'm not sure that over the last 35 years I can remember that being used in an earlier period it was to quote the Xinhua report stressing that cadres are the decisive factor affecting the political course Xi Jinping called for a stronger contingent of Foreign Affairs personnel that are loyal to the CPC the country and the people and are politically solid professionally competent and strongly disciplined in their conduct he called on Foreign Affairs cadres to enhance their ideals and their training so as to upgrade their competency and their overall quality so this is Prasad a new type of Chinese foreign ministry diplomat abroad perhaps it's long been reported that Xi Jinping has been frustrated by the performance of parts of his foreign policy establishment he's then he sees them as proceeding at a glacial pace whereas China's strategic challenges and opportunities are seen by him as urgent once again this tends to point in the direction of greater foreign policy activism in the future and a system that is struggling to keep up with a political and policy vision of its leader fourth change China leading the reform of global governance this is perhaps the sharpest substantive element to emerge from the 2018 foreign policy work conference in his remarks specifically on the future of global governance in the 2014 work conference Xi Jinping refer to an impending struggle for the future of the International order his words he Donnell he did not elaborate on what this meant back then but much work has got has gone on within the Chinese system since on three interrelated concepts the international order gorgey journal the international system gorgeous item and global governance trench walk 1d of course these terms mean different but overlapping things in English as well broadly speaking in Chinese the term international global order refers to a combination of two things first the system in comprising the UN the Bretton Woods institutions the g20 and other global plurilateral or multilateral institutions and number two the u.s. system of global alliances to enforce the USA's own definition of international security now the term international system woody Sheetal tends to refer to the first half of what I've just described as the international order namely the complex web of multilateral institutions which operate under international treaty law and which seek to govern the global Commons on the basis of the principle of shared sovereignty and as for global governance it tends to refer to the actual performance for good or for real be it effective or ineffective of the international system so defined it's significant however that at the 2018 work conferences Xi Jinping States boldly that a core component of his new ideology of a diplomacy of socialism with Chinese characteristics will be for China to and I quote him to lead the reform of the global governance system with the concepts of fairness and justice unquote lead the reform of the global governance system in accordance with the concepts of fairness and justice unquote this is new in my judgment this is by far the most direct unqualified and expansive statement on China's intentions on this important question we've seen chyna like the rest of the international community is acutely conscious of the dysfunctionality of much the current multilateral system I've done a report on this over two years time I'm aware of it the detail our Chinese friends are as well China also sees however the United States walking away from much of the system as well walking away from the jcpoa which was agreed on Iran by the UN Security Council walking away from the UN's Paris agreement on climate change the decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva it's increasingly open defiance of the UN refugees convention and it's challenging of the underlying fabric of the WTO China sees all of this happening in terms of American behaviors nature as we know a pause a vacuum international relations even more so and we all saw xi Jinping's reports to President Trump on climate change in trade at Davos ADA months ago just after the Trump election if China is indeed serious about leading the reform of global governance its attitude to various of these multilateral institutions will be radically different to the historical posture of the United States take for example the Human Rights Council in Geneva where China which China would like to see emasculated mind you so too now apparently does the United States administration as well the reference to China leading the reform of global governance at this work conference is not an accident it also reflects a growing Chinese diplomatic activism and a number of UN and Bretton Woods institutions around the world as China begins to seek to recast these institutions their cultures their work practices and their personnel in a direction more compatible with China's core national interests as I've written before rather than China having to consistently resist the pressures of westernization inherent in the existing laws institutions and culture of the current international system particularly when these proved to be incompatible with the retention of a Marxist Leninist Chinese State the resolve of Chinese leadership now seems to be to use it's newfound global power to refashion those institutions within the international system that may be most problematic for China on the home front as for the principles of fairness and justice that Xi Jinping refers to as the core principles that will guide China's reform of global governance these terms historically implied China's preference for a more multipolar international system in which the unilateral voice the United States is reduced China has already developed a strong constituency in Africa part of Asia and Latin America in support of this multipolarity in Chinese strategic parlance is code for the dilution of American power in the post-war international system and finally China's core national interests lest anyone get too starry-eyed about China's intentions for reforming global governance in Xi Jinping's description of the core principles of its new diplomacy of socialism with Chinese characteristics Xi Jinping concludes his list of 10 governing principles with the following that China I quote him must take its core national interests as the bottom line to safeguard China's sovereignty security and development interests unquote she may explain that China's foreign policy is unapologetically nationalist she assumes that all other countries foreign policies are nationalists as well of course China's definition of its core national interests has evolved over time as have other nations it now includes for example the South China Sea a decade ago this was not a feature of Chinese official statements defining China's core national interests now it is as for any state therefore the concept of core national interests varies over time and will be defined by the government of the day to conclude we will soon see how the 2018 central foreign policy work conference translates into different Chinese foreign policy behaviors on the ground if the 2014 conference is an effective guide will see a heightened period of Chinese foreign policy activism however the price content of that activism remains to be seen but what we are seeing is the slow steady emergence of a more integrated Chinese world which links China's domestic vision with its international vision and a vision which very much reflects the deep views of China's paramount leader Xi Jinping the first policy terrain where we are likely to see this is in the existing institutions of global governance but it will not be restricted to this area the text of the report of the 2018 foreign policy work conference suggests that we will also see this across China's bilateral relations its engagement with regional institutions as well as its approach to major power relations as well all of which are likely to be met with an increasingly forthright Chinese diplomacy the challenge for the rest of the international community is to define what type of future international order system and governance it wants and to take Chinese invitations seriously to engage the Middle Kingdom in a Frank and forthright discourse and what the region in the world precisely want if any future global community of common destiny is in fact to come to pass for example what is the EU want for the future international system the future international order and future global governments what does ASEAN want what does the East Asian summit want what does the African Union want what does the organization of African American States want what does the Gulf Cooperation Council want and what exactly does America want with or without Trump and in this dialogue how will the values already entrenched in the UN Charter Bretton Woods in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the founding instruments of these various regional organizations we reserve for the future the future of the global order is now in a state of some flux in part and used by the written posture of the United States in part induced by the rise of China China it seems has a clear script for the future it's time for the rest of the international community to do the same I thank you all the changes that you have identified tells us that China will be more assertive has a theory behind its foreign policy but what's the endgame I asked a question about the endgame because base where you are in New York I think many Americans are concerned as you probably will remember some years ago Graham Allison of the 2cities trap and Robert Blackwell both were at the Kennedy School asked the lately Kuan Yew this is what the last like interviews that Lee Kuan Yew gave does China want to replace the US as the number one power in Asia and Beyond and mr. Lee's answer was yes of course it wants to after all they have lifted 700 million people from poverty right and believe they have the right to do so but for this century by which he means the 21st century what China wants this equality they can leave the rest to later I was wondering struck what do you think of that well I was fortunate enough also to spend some time in discussions with Lee Kuan Yew when I was Prime Minister of Australia I would call in here from time to time and it's always good to sit at the feet of the master and to learn a few things I was a young kid on the block I've recently been elected as Prime Minister of Australia and Lee Kuan Yew was very much the old head on the block who knew a thing or two and I've benefited from those discussions enormous lean and my questions to him were very much like grams and Bob black walls which is what's the Chinese endgame in your assessment and his reflections in response to that are consistent with what you've just read out from Graham and Bob's book mmm which is I think entitled lessons from the master yes I spent a year at the Kennedy School with those guys and my first year of political exile from Australia laughter I came second in our national elections that means I lost the so let me answer the question two or three quick parts so what's the endgame one is national which is the end game for Xi Jinping is for the Chinese Communist Party to remain in power Western audiences need to understand that this mist guide you that I have repeatedly put to me in United States over recent times of gradual evolution I think it's just misty-eyed to the endgame is exactly what he says it says shall conquer quick it's a relatively well-off society and one which by the mid-century point is a fully developed economy with living standards like you see in OECD countries 3 he wants a clean environment the whole push towards environmental sustainability or what the Chinese referred to as eco civilizations shuntay with me that's part of it it's recent part of it but it's important part of it Chinese people want to breathe in their cities and to raise their kids healthy like all of us do the fourth is it wants to have the motherland united and that means taiwan by one means or another five china once a benign environment with its 14 neighboring land borders china has more land neighbors and land borders than any other country in the world except russia which also has 14 and a history of china which is which is for so many centuries of its history of its civilization is that problems come from either the sill knew in the north insurance the northeast the mongols whoever else all the Maffin comes from over your borders and then louder helen daughter and so then you have the Japanese come that's good muffin and so and so that is a deep in end state and then beyond that in Greater East Asia which comes to your point with and my conversational so with with Harry Lee is that China does not want East Asia in the westerns Pacific Pacific to remain as a zone of US strategic influence it wants us alliances in the region ended and for China to have shall I say a comfortable accommodating wider foreign and security policy environment across wider East Asia and then to round out the picture on its continental periphery which is what extends from China's western borders all the way to Rotterdam hence Dalton Road and a few other places in between China also wants for the first time a benign western frontier across the Eurasian landmass where China has deep anxieties about the future impact of radical Islam on the Western Shin Jung in particular and more broadly to finish on this the global order the global rules based system China would like a global rules-based order which is not something which they are required to consume having been written by a bunch of Westerners who were formal colonial powers meeting in San Francisco 1945 but for the rules of the system to be more reflective of Chinese interests and a Chinese voice that I believe is kind of the integrated end state so far as I can give its shape and form whether China can get there or not there give me a lot of counter voices on the way through from the region from the United States a whole bunch of other people as well thank you thank you very much we would like now to open the discussion to the floor and please use one of the mites so gentleman over there over here and if you could identify yourself and keep your questions short that way we'll be able to take in more questions hi good evening Kevin now welcome back to Singapore my name is ace hi there I have two burning questions for you first question ace of spades or rise of clubs is of anything you like my first question is that will there be a world war 3 if US and China were to be at war my second my second question how can the world and North Korean leader Kim jong-un be assured that his regime will be safe and secure when he has fulfilled a CVID order the disarmament and not be a victim like Muammar Gaddafi I read that icons website has stated that the US has about 7,000 nuclear weapons as compared to North Korea has only less than 50 is it still possible and practical that a world be free from nuclear weapons Thank You succeeding look at 1,000 on the question of conflict and war between the United States I'm a great friend and fan and supporter of Graham Allison's because we're colleagues we work together and I get referred to in a lot of the the the endnotes in his book on Thucydides trap of course the editors of the book I wanted to sell copies of the book so they gave it the title destined for war US and China that's what editors do they like newspaper editors they want to soup it up and make it sound as sharp as possible for sell as many grams book doesn't quite say that he arrays for a 16 historical case studies huge methodological debate within the Academy in terms of the representative nature of those case studies from 1500 to the present and should there be more should there be less etc but overall his book is simply a warning that there is something alive in the notion of established powers and rising powers that if we're not very careful can result in conflict and war if I get my act together the next six months I intend to write a short monograph book and response to it which is going to be called the US and China the avoidable war and how we can manage that and and so I've got a few thoughts around those lines because I think the debate in Washington at this time is getting a little bit out of control in terms of defining China is the the the comprehensive enemy of the future and also there is some sentiment in parts of Beijing as well parts of Beijing so my own view is this is entirely avoidable and and your parallel question is it doesn't lead to World War 3 well it would we could just forget the Asian century put it that way that's the end of that you know the consequences which flow your final question which is about the DPRK on North Korea in terms of the nature of the agreement which can be struck look what I noticed most carefully about the four part statement coming out of Singapore and congratulations to our friends in Singapore for hosting such a successful summit I mean you managed to contain two giant egos within one island Donald Trump and Kim jong-eun I mean congratulations Singapore I mean either that takes Talent oh sure anyone else's geography could have accommodated that the anyway back to the serious part of your question I think CVRD comprehensive verifiable and irreversible disarmament I was not reflected in the document at all and despite the best attempts the US side to get there it just wasn't within the negotiating scope of the DPRK side personally I doubt it ever will be I believe and I bathe just on intuition rather than hard evidence that where the two sides may wish to push this negotiation is to perhaps find a agreement which can be reached on the question of intercontinental range missiles that is those which directly thread continental United States while effectively leaving intact these short and medium-range missiles and a given quantity of nuclear material within the DPRK for regime preservation purposes that may then render redundant the question of international security guarantees I'll leave it there we know your Chinese is very good and you can understand China quite aware okay Paraiba this there has been a interesting phenomena led in China chance people always say we are earnest to misunderstood by the West but the in the West people said why people why Chandler behaves like this so even you understand China quite aware do you still can understand some behaviors China is doing that's a very sensitive question how can I avoid answering that I think I think in the business of the future of us-china relations and let's let's come back to that because it's the binary relationship here and it's not the total relationship for all of us you're Singaporeans I'm Australian even though we live in the United States but frankly the two giant elephants in the front living room can wreck most of the furniture okay and so let's focus on those two I find the level of wood year and misunderstanding in both capitals still quite significant the wood year in Washington is is sometimes frightening but also I think what I find often in Beijing is an assumption that what is simply a mistake or a miscommunication American policy is some deeply laid out strategic plan on the part of the United States when it's just frankly stuff up mm-hm if you know anything about the functioning of Western parliamentary democracies there are lots of stuff ups and so so I think the question of miss comprehension misunderstanding is large then you run into an area where I think you have objective differences and perhaps irreconcilable differences in terms of deep strategic interests and these cannot be wished away through another seminar or another seminar and for example the core of that would be the future of Taiwan and we need to be very blunt about that and decide how its to be handled so I read a report on us-china relations about three years ago just after my year at Harvard with Graham Allison and Joan I and the rest of the team Bob Blackwell and the rest on future of us-china relations under Xi Jinping where I wrote about a concept of what I described as constructive realism channeling the central Yee and the reason I did that was because to be constructively realistic means to put things into four boxes what do we actually agree upon what do we radically disagree on what is difficult that we might get there in the end and what do we actually frankly don't understand about each other at present the discourse between the two countries washers between these three boxes the whole time and when I always hear you know the unfamiliar church our negotiate both sides like mutual trust well of course is the Pope Catholic you know it's kind of inevitable that's an Australian expression it means yes of course and Pope is a Catholic but you need therefore to build trust on working together collaboratively on stuff that you can agree on even on the hard stuff like North Korea that would build enormous strategic trust in the US and China if you could land an outcome but unless you approach it I think it with that level of methodology I worry that we're simply going to wash between these areas all the time and begin to see the relationship degrade and to generate overtime that is my deepest fear now I get to a question the first is that in this our foreign policy meeting that you mentioned once his son's name was prominently mentioned as a member which is very unusual and considered a $0.20 a super pragmatic I will say that bond pancita you offer in the stamping out the corruptions so how's your personal feeling of what row he can play in the foreign policy of that the president and the second question you mentioned is that the pi-1 issue is one of the endgame scenario probably the most critical and China has put a 2035 powerful country and 2014 9 2015 of global power countries and in history there's no powerful countries that is split countries so how do you put a time frame on the conjecture on the issue of Taiwan between the United States and China when you're speaking about the endgame I don't think you mentioned ideology at all so you mentioned your politics I started with the party it's sort of a sub sub section of that I'm sorry yeah I think I'm but could you elaborate more on the logical extreme of socialism with Chinese characteristics the seating ping believe in the Marxist project progression into communism how and how does that look like in the future with the ideology ideology evolve again more once you shun the firemen the firemen Wong the so where's the big fire on at the moment the us-china table walk and so my instincts tell me that's where see Dada is going to try and use him I think a visit is being planned for one to shun to the United States soon Jubal Early are you and your Wonder Woman James Watt so you see there's an asymmetry at the moment you have the aura and their job did you who is responsible for the us-china economic relationship and all of its complexity but on the depths of the security policy relationship and that's called the ultimate political relationship there is not a point person at this stage it does not seem to be yong-joo true even though he's in charge of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Committee my instinct is that therefore fireman Wong is about to be sent to Washington and more broadly to deal with trying to land a sustainable framework for the us-china relationship if that happens I think that's a good thing I mean I know him reasonably well made him quite a number of times and I think he certainly has a deep reading of the United States and the West as well as of course confidence of his own political leader as for Taiwan my my attitude to that is I take your point about historical time frames and disunited great powers but at the point of which anyone starts to mutter a time frame we're in serious trouble it automatically organizes politics on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and we end up in a truly horrible trajectory so I'm all for the baubles and wrong kind of sometimes in diplomacy and politics the wisest thing you can do is kick the can down the road remember done next generation much smarter than us much smarter than us haven't met them yet but they're bound to be much smarter than us so some guinea shall leave whoa yeah Taiwan and now on the question you're very good questions so where are you over here here on ideology it's a really sharp question for my sins I should confess this to the semi academic gathering I am now enrolled as a DPhil student at the Oxford China Center in London that's really not being offered not in London and I'm working on Xi Jinping's worldview so for the first time in my life I've had to read Marxism okay it's not a popular subject in Australia we so talk a lot about Marxism down there and so but to understand two things one is that's call it a Marxist analytical framework which you'll be familiar with and the disciplines being dialectical materialism and historical materialism and to understand the interrelationship between you know thesis antithesis and synthesis as let's call it a discipline for understanding reality and I know enough about what I've read from Xi Jinping's so far that his training is deeply Marxist in his analytical framework of understanding what happens within the country and what is now happening in the dialectical relationship between states now the other half of your question is a much more problematic one which is what is the end game and the end game of let's call it the first part of my response to it which is a permanence of the party but is that purely a Leninist party of opportunity which is we simply control it because we're the new emperors and China's always worked with central control so lianying that uses hinder Wandy well no there is content but I would be not being honest with you if I said I've reached any conclusion on where they have reached internally on this question and I believe it's still in flux if you want a simple illustration on my mobile phone recently I was in somewhere in China Bobby in Shanghai I think I was topped at a traffic light and there next to me was sure I do either Dada okay big from the chin Trumbull huge propaganda thing there and I said I've always wanted to know what the core morals or the judge of one is the values of socialism there are 12 of them and I can't list them all to you but the 12 of them are largely in part they're internally contradictory and secondly they certainly do not form part of an integrated shall I say system ology in terms of where a Marxist worldview would take you it strikes me very much as a bringing together of element of the tradition and elements of Marxism and elements of something else so for me that is a manifestation of the fact that the ideological work in terms of the ideological content of the endgame is still very much in process and institutes in Beijing but at the dong-chil and the show/hide Yui show who do we show you that are working on this and so I think it's a work in progress so if that's - working on it I can't pronounce somewhere they're going to conclude thank you very much for elevating the conversation beyond the headlines as you said at the risk of dragging it back to the trade and economic front a big focus obviously has been this issue of the tariffs between the US and China but this particular week it's going to be all about investment and the investment restrictions that the Trump administration is thinking of placing on inbound flows from China obviously this is an issue unique to the US on Australia in your home country it's a very much alive issue in EU and in the UK and even in to some extent in India so the broader question then is what is the right balance between embracing inbound flows from China which is important for investment for companies and jobs but also protecting some of the national security considerations because we will be living with this debate for some decades to come and given your experience with one foot in Australia the US and China I'd appreciate your thoughts on that balance I'd like to pose a question about you stayed in your speech how one of the changes to the foreign policy would be to sort of with a departure of the US from global order how China would be taking on sort of more driving seat deciding the course of this global order well could you project if the u.s. suddenly returned to taking the driving seat what China and the u.s. be able to share sort of this deciding the course of the world in the global order or maybe trying to decide which one was better than the other I wonder what's Australia's choice under the current Turnbull administration because we now have noticed that tension between Australia and the US on things such as immigration issues and also the tension between Australia and China regarding the foreign interference so would you say that what the Turnbull administration's motive is contradicting to this what prof Hugh White has argued like there's a power transition between the US and China and so that the Asian countries should embrace this future and admit that there will be a coexistence between the US and China in Asia I'm gonna ask you a very simple question news we are and it's gonna be about Donald Trump okay because we haven't really spoken too much about Donald so I'd like your opinions on Donald Trump's national strategy and he's global strategy Donald Trump I've met him once so I can't I can't elaborate in terms of direct personal knowledge look I think when you look at President Trump what you see is what you get I mean this guy is the product of forces at work within the United States body politic he didn't cause anti-globalization he's the manifestation of anti-globalization and and that's how albeit narrowly he managed to win that election so the reason I say that is that when we listened to Donald Trump my own judgment both is someone who's trained as a diplomat but someone who's practiced as a politician in a highly competitive democracy there when Trump speaks on global questions Trump is speaking primarily to his domestic voter base because he wants to a not surrender the house of the Senate to the Democrats in the midterms do you in November and B definitely doesn't want to lose the next election and so I know there are no country on the planet where a foreign policy is clinically separated from domestic politics if we were sitting around the politburo table a drum non-high at the moment domestic considerations shape what China does in the world well it happens with it with all of us but when we look at the public language of President Trump we need to be very mindful of the fact but I think that's driven in large part by his domestic political calculus what worries me about that is that therefore internationally domestically there's an end game I win internationally there is no conceived end game which is arguably nobody wins on the question of the first question I was asked about tariffs Senate and and investment restrictions and Australia being the example I think you're up there somewhere so the look there's no magic to this when we're in office we were we Australia at that stage we're receiving by far and above the single largest number of foreign direct investment applications from China compared with any country in the world probably because the resources sector but more generally because the general economy in the opportunities and because we are a very open economy we have been for a long time and it's part the reason why I would argue Australia is a relatively successful economy it's been on ride bipartisan basis very open for at least the last quarter of a century third of a century product of both sides of politics however when you reach difficult decisions which in the case of we we do with foreign investment applications from various countries then the only criteria that you have is called a national interest criteria in Australia in 1976 we established something called the Foreign Investment Review Board China was still in the Cultural Revolution when we were when we established the Foreign Investment Review Board we did not establish it to keep Chinese investment out we had established so that we could properly assess investment applications from the Americans from the British from the Japanese then from the Koreans wanting to buy XY a B and C and we need criteria through which the government of the day could be advised as to the net economic advantage to the country or not or if there was any national security implications to be so advised as well of all the applications we received from China from memory we probably approved about 90 to 93 percent of them and those we declined I think we rejected one or two outright and we sent the others back for further work further work was too hard and so that he didn't come back so so overall that's how we handled it I think what I'm surprised about is the lack of maturity relative to our own national experience in Australia of what's now unfolding in Europe and to some extent the United States where they have not had as well established regime for handling foreign investment applications as we've been forced to have for the last 30 or 40 years Europe it's a relatively new phenomenon you go to Germany these days people running around saying ah you know we've got to control Chinese investment as if it's the first time they've had to face a decision about a foreign investor from anywhere this surprises me but that's the reality so the final thing I'd say on foreign investment is this when I did reject as Prime Minister certain particular applications from China I did say in response when I got attacked vigorously in trench au revoir and and you know Global Times and those sort of newspapers in China for being fun but which I thought was kind of interesting I said okay guys I'll have a debate with you you say that I should give you access to every element of the Australian mining industry I'd really like to go and begin a big mining development in the middle of Lop nor in Ching hai okay has to be close to your nuclear testing site but just forget about that I mean the bottom line is everyone has their national security considerations everyone has certain certain defined strategic industries and reciprocity is a key factor as well in terms of having a parallel investment environment in the originating country which would enable investments from my country to go there as well that I think is the second parallel principle very briefly on the two last questions which were asked one was on your point young man about the departure of the United States what if it comes back again there's a fascinating debate the United States which is around three things G - Chinese United States G one China or the United States G zero known in the literature is the Kindleberger trap which is nobody's running anything okay all three are difficult I think the reality is here is my suggestion is that given the polarization of things currently between China United States it's time for the g20 to now come into a new zone of its own in global governance beyond simply global economic governance but also on questions which are now deeply problematic on global political and security governance as well the reason I say that is it's not just China in the United States it is the major emerging countries economies and political systems in the world there is India there is China there is Indonesia there is Brazil there is Mexico as well as Turkey as well as Western countries and having been in a number of these summits myself and having one of its co-creators it's manageable around a table of 22 work through some of these things just as it's unmanageable to resolve these things for the UN General Assembly just as it is utterly unrepresentative to do these things in a meeting of two between China and United States like Spain and Portugal back in the 16th century when the Pope tried to divide the world between two Catholic powers didn't end terribly well but your question is a good one so what I'm saying is none the above look at a institution which is sufficiently representative of the world today to make efficient decisions but not so representative they can't make any decisions which is currently the nature frankly United Nations system and finally my friend about a choice under Turnbull and my views about Hugh white I think um look I have a pretty old-fashioned view about this stuff in Australia at least that's the question is directed there it's called the advanced international relations theory of Kevin Wright it's called walking and chewing gum at the same time which is we can be Ally the United States and be a very strong partner of China's in political and economic terms without these becoming mutually exclusive propositions and as soon as we believe in our heads that these are mutually exclusive propositions there's a problem that's where I keep saying is trained body politic who run around sometimes like chucks with their heads cut off that's like chickens with their heads cut off on this question everyone should just take a deep breath and realize that we are going through deep changes in the global and regional order there is nothing inherently fatally contradictory about these two propositions we can be fully engaged with both just as they are fully at present engaged with each other thank you very much mr. Wright you

Channel: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Views: 28,897

Rating: 4.661972 out of 5

Keywords: kevin rudd, US, U.S.A, U.S., china, korea, economy, politics, international order, trump, xi jinping, public policy, policy, NUS, lkyspp, lee kuan yew school of public policy, lky school, lecture, trade war, kishore mahbubani, kishore mahbubani 2018, us china relations, trade war with china, china trade war with us, prime minister, australia, kevin rudd on china, kevin rudd china

Id: P9xlwBwBRBs

Length: 73min 48sec (4428 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 16 2018