The Avoidable War: In Conversation with the Hon. Kevin Rudd and Professor Jocelyn Chey Full Version

well good evening everyone and a very very warm welcome my name is professor John durians I am the director of The whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University together with my colleague and friend Professor Jing Han from The Institute for Australian and Chinese arts and culture it is our pleasure to be able to welcome each of you here to this very special event to hear from The Honorable Kevin Rudd AC 26th Prime Minister of Australia in conversation with Professor Jocelyn Che am about his new book The avoidable War the dangers of a catastrophic conflict between the U.S and yujinping's China we are joined this evening by many distinguished guests from The Diplomatic Corps both past and present current and former judicial officers those who have or are serving in local state and federal government for Western Sydney University and last and certainly not least friends from The Wider Community welcome all friends Matilda Harry a young proud academic award-winning gradui scholar currently a PhD candidate with The Graduate research school at Western Sydney University will now welcome us to Country Matilda is a passion is passionate about creating positive social change through education and is achieving this through her community activism her public engagements her board memberships and as a volunteer in numerous Grassroots Community programs her doctoral research focuses upon indigenous youth success and mentorship Matilda [Applause] Yama Dam around everyone you and Nadi Matilda Hari baladu rajri gibia Gillian Raj good evening The Honorable Kevin Rudd members of the whitlam board leaders members of the Australian Chinese community members of Western Sydney University's professoriate and guests wow this is such an exciting event as you know my name's Matilda and I'm a proud Roger woman with ancestral and spiritual connections to go in a country look our country in Central West New South Wales the language I spoke earlier is my language rajari language and I speak it today with permission from my elders and direct Elders as a way to pay respects to those who pass it on to us young ones I'm lucky enough to know some of you but for those who don't know me I'm a proud Aboriginal Australian woman a daughter granddaughter brother sister Auntie partner I'm also an educator a writer and a PhD candidate tonight we meet on the ancestral home of the barometrical peoples of the darike nation and this is really special Nora to me because this is where I was born and I continue to live study and work so I pay my utmost respects to direct ancestors people's lands and waterways Derek Elders are really strong and resilient and generous as they continue to share the dreaming of this country so tonight I thought I would share some interesting information about the country that we're on to help us connect considering that the Parramatta river runs parallel to where we are now as it actually borders our campus Derek Elders note that the name barramata actually means where the eels lay down and since creation the short finned eels have migrated from the barometer River out to sea with Recent research documenting them traveling as far as Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia where the adults breed lay their eggs and then they die and when the babies hatch they instinctively swim all the way back home to the home of their parents the barramada river and they stay there until they're ready to make the journey themselves in which they spawn the Next Generation so this streaming story and research shows that despite all the changes that have been made to the bermatical river the eels continue to grow to swim out to sea to spawn and their offsprings return home to their ancestral home so despite all the changes and damages done to Country indigenous ways of knowing our ways of being and our ways of doing are practiced and shared in communities just like this one I'm thrilled to be here tonight and I really thank the whitlam Institute and the institute for Australian and Chinese arts and culture for warmly inviting me to join The Honorable Kevin Rudd as he discusses ideas from his new book I look forward to listening to Yan about Australia's position in relation to China and the US and I hope it insights new ways of thinking about current geopolitical crises amid the overwhelming news cycle I want to conclude by my acknowledgment by sharing a Roger philosophy that my very wise pop and Elders have instilled in me back home we say yidiamara Yara mangari and this roughly translates to remind us all that it is all of our responsibility to respect care for and value country and Community for generations to come may my ancestors walk with you all tonight thanks foreign thank you so much so much Matilda for your kind and generous welcome on behalf of all of us here uh tonight let me also acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present this year marks the 50th anniversary of Australia's establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China on the 21st of December 1972. the exchange of diplomatic relations and the recognition of China was an extraordinary achievement by the with them government it was famously preceded by golf with them's Intrepid 1971 visit to China when leader of the opposition this visit was the first Contact between Australian and Chinese political leaders since 1949. this bold Overture promised to recast relations between the two countries but it was a politically risky Gambit the question of whether to recognize the legitimacy of the communist government of China was one of the major foreign policy debates of the Cold War era whitlam had espoused recognition of the People's Republic of China from as early as August 1954 when he became the first Member of Parliament to urge Australian recognition of China for decades Australia had looked to China with distrust anxiety and paranoia the whitlam government's establishment of diplomatic relations allowed a mature cultural social and economic relationship to develop as Australia's relationship with China is again Center Stage whitlam's plea that we should be able to empathize with China rather than perceive it entirely from the perspective of our own insecurities seems very contemporary and prescient with them said quote one of the greatest troubles in relations between China and the West is that we expect China to believe the best about our statements of intention while we choose to believe the worst about hers we expect understanding for our own fears but we have never tried to understand hers we have been obsessed by our historical experience but we scoff at China's obsession with her own experience the Whitman Institute commemorates this historic visit and its impact on Australian China relations golf with them strategic respectful and independent approach to diplomacy established a new place for Australia in the world 50 years on much can be drawn from this approach in how we tackle the foreign policy challenges of today we are extraordinarily fortunate in our guests this evening it is my distinct pleasure to be able to welcome and introduce Professor joshlyn Che am and in a few moments to call upon the honorable John Faulkner to introduce the honorable Kevin Rudd AC Professor Che has had a stellar career in the Diplomatic service and in academic life from a position as lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Sydney she moved to Canberra in 1973 when Australia first established diplomatic relations with China for more than 20 years she worked on Australia China relations in the department of trade and Foreign Affairs and was posted to three times to China and Hong Kong from 1975 to 1978 she had a diplomatic appointment as cultural counselor to out in the Australian Embassy in Beijing before taking up a position as senior trade commissioner in the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 1885 to 88 and finally as Consul General in Hong Kong from 1992 to 1995. now during this time she was instrumental in helping lay the foundations for trade and cultural relations between China and Australia she was the key administrative officer in the Australia China council at the time of its founding in 1979 from 88 92 she worked outside the public sector as director of the China branch of the international wool Secretariat now retired from public service Jocelyn is a visiting professor at the University of Sydney a consultant in Australia China relations and is a founding director and Adjunct professor of the Australia China Institute for arts and culture Foundation here at Western Sydney University Professor Che is a China expert she's a long time friend of Mr Rudd and the perfect conversationalist for this evening Professor Che you are most welcome may I please now invite The Honorable John Faulkner to introduce the honorable Kevin Rudd AC John [Applause] well thanks very much John I always think the the easiest introduction of Kevin Rudd would to would be just to quote our special guests own words of self-introduction with a little twist for the third person pronoun his name's Kevin he's from Queensland and he's here to help but I'm not going to do that and I'm also not going to adopt the approach of former prime minister Goff whitlam whose Legacy of course we honor at the whitlam Institute after being appointed Australia's ambassador to UNESCO Goff was asked about his knowledge and understanding of unesco's work his response to the journalist was just great young lady neither you nor I have the time for that long an interview well today where we're very lucky to have the time to benefit from Kevin Rudd's experience and wisdom the experience and wisdom of another former prime minister and we're very lucky to benefit from his unparalleled expertise on China which is developed and grown over Decades of study research diplomacy analysis and engagement often at the various very highest International level I had my own experience of this when General Gore the vice chairman of the central military Commission of the PRC visited Australia in 2010 when I was the defense minister and I believe that General Gore was the most senior PRC official to visit Australia prior to president xi's visit in 2014. and as is the nature of such visits after an exchange of pleasantries eight of us retired into a special meeting room for an official dialogue you look terribly worried Kevin there about what I'm going to say please please you should be no now I'm I want to I want to assure Caitlyn that um uh I'm not able because of confidentiality concerns to actually let you know what happened inside that room well actually I don't know what happened the meeting lasted about 25 minutes it was conducted entirely in Mandarin the the only one person present yours truly was clueless about what was said or the outcome of the meeting and I do think to be honest with you sitting in a room trying to appear interested when you when you understand not one word uttered by any other participant for nearly half an hour is a very good test of character I don't know whether I passed that test or not but I do recall saying to Kevin as we left the meeting in um in somewhat more fruity language that I'm going to uh share with you I think I said I think you really stuffed that up and Kevin just chuckled as we walked away but it was one of those experiences you have in politics but but it's important to understand that that um we should be under no Illusions about how important the capacity for engagement Kevin had it was quite unique quite unprecedented for a head of government in our nation's experience and I think more broadly in the International Community to engage in that way and can I say to you Kevin that we're very grateful uh that you are sharing with us some of your recent thinking and Analysis about the uh the risk of war between China and the United States and the challenges Australia faces with its own relationship into the future with China and as Jonathan said this is particularly so in seven days of course we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the election of the whitlam government and as you've heard the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China just 19 days later on the 21st of December 1972 where delighted Kevin that you're able to join us this evening it's an honor for The whitlam Institute and it's an honor for Western Sydney University to have you ladies and Gentlemen please welcome former prime minister Kevin Rudd [Applause] thank you very much and I too honor the first Australians on Whose lands we meet and whose cultures we celebrate as the oldest continuing cultures in human history uh John the reason um that I took half an hour with the then Vice chairman of military commission to engage in dialogue in Chinese it took me half an hour to explain to him how tall handsome and intelligent you were and as you know you don't constitute a short essay so by the time we got through to each chapter of your political career our time was up so when you said you really stuffed it up that was a piano praise in Chinese about you the um EG whitlam it's so good to be here to honor this man this extraordinary man after whom this institute is named and Catherine his daughter his only daughter I would simply like to honor golf personally and Margaret in front of you he's such a seminal change agent in the history of this nation thank you foreign to uh Jocelyn Che who I've known for decades now since we worked together in Beijing in the Mesolithic period um that was the 80s and I haven't changed a bit Norris Jocelyn but we did good things together in those early days of the australia-china relationship but also like to honor Jocelyn your scholarship and your contribution to Australian diplomacy in what also provided at that time difficult challenges as well uh and to uh all of our friends at the University of Western Sydney uh Therese and I have an enormous soft spot for this University treys actually holds an honorary doctorate from this University and she uh holds this institution the highest regard and the founding vision of this University which is to make educational opportunities open for all not just for some but for all consistent with the whitlam vision for the nation's future including poor kids from a rural background in rural Queensland like me to extend that Vision here to this vast patch of Greater Western Sydney says much about Golf and his vision for the future and much about this great University so I congratulate the university for what you have done um I've been given 10 minutes to explain the vision Splendid on the sunlit plains extended about where to now between China and the United States can I do this first by simply explaining what I've been doing since I left these Shores some six or seven years ago and why I've come to write this book entitled the avoidable war uh when I left I went to the US and ended up as president of the Asia Society as society was established in 56 by John D Rockefeller III to build relations between the United States and the emerging countries and economies of Asia and this was barely three years after the end of the Korean War it was midpoint between the first and second Taiwan Straits crisis and on top of that it was six or seven years before the first hostilities in Vietnam this institution has sought to build those relations over a very long period of time through good times and in bad and my job was to establish its first formal Think Tank and we began as a startup and now we have a staff of 50 or 60 focusing purely on Asia and within that we've now become one of the largest think tanks dedicated to the study of China in the United States and so we take pride in our achievements as an institution but it is why professionally I have remained engaged on the great questions of China's future its impact on the world and its impact on us as Australians as well as part of that um I decided that it was important to try and understand Xi Jinping I'd met him in Canberra I have met him a number of times in Beijing and the question I'm asked most often in the world is who is this man what does he believe in what is his plan for his country for the future in the world in the region and as it affects us and what should we do about it so in one of the most foolish things I've done in my life in 2017-18 I enrolled in a d fill at Oxford I have just graduated from Oxford after five years of study and the title of my no it's not to invite of clause that is simply to say my God what a foolish thing that was but um and uh and if you look at our class photographs from our graduating college there am I sitting as the Ancient of Days with all these Bright Young things um my college by the way was Jesus college John Jesus College Oxford and the reason I chose Jesus you'll appreciate this somewhat reflective of goth who once described himself as a fellow travel traveler of Jesus um I wanted a email address which had kevin.rud at Jesus and I now have the subject of the thesis is defining XI jinping's ideological worldview which I've just completed it's now with Oxford University press and you'll see it in some form published form next year in the midst of all that I became deeply anxious about the emerging shape of the U.S China relationship uh which is why I then took six months out of my doctoral studies to write this book on the avoidable war which is purely about U.S China relations China's role in the rest of the world but largely about U.S China relations as it is the big strategic factor which influences us all and the thesis of the book which I will now come to is relevant to our discourse in this country and in all countries whether they are friends partners and allies of the United States or friends and partners of the People's Republic of China right now whether we like it or not there is a strategic competition between the United States and China it's clear it doesn't matter what language is used to describe it there is such a competitive race underway and the object of the competition is which country emerges as the preeminent power in our region in the world by mid-century both sides are cagey about the way they describe this but if you look at the entrails of military strategy you look at the entrails of their economic strategies what is happening in the great technological race between them and the unfolding ideological discourse distributed by each about the future shape of the International System this competition is on in earnest the Americans call it such they call it strategic competition our Chinese friends prefer not to call it that when you look at the essence of it that is what is at stake some have asked how did it get to this and I think there's a couple of factors at play which we need to be very mindful of the first is from a realist view of the world there is an unfolding balance of power between China and the United States across the Taiwan Straits China wishes to reunite with Taiwan under a single Chinese sovereignty Taiwanese don't want that and the United States is supportive of China of Taiwan maintaining the status quo so analyzing carefully the unfolding dynamics of the physical balance of power between China and the United States and Taiwan and other U.S allies in the region is one big driving Factor underpinning the current Dynamics in the U.S China relationship and that balance of power has been shifting slowly but inexorably in China's favor militarily economically in trade in capital flows in technology depending on the category of technology that we are talking about and this therefore has caused this competitive relationship to rise much closer to the surface the second driving Factor underneath all of this is the fact that Xi Jinping himself as China's leader since the end of 2012 10 years ago last month 10 years ago this month has changed China's strategic course dang Xiaoping China's former leader and Jung zamin and hujin Tao who replaced him had an axiom about how China should conduct itself in the world which in Chinese was very simple hide your strength bad your time never take the lead and underneath that there was a Doctrine which dung Xiaoping an enunciated of the party internally which is that China's foreign security policies should be Servants of its National Economic Policy and that is that China should develop its economy become a strong global economy and then over time gradually increase its foreign policy footprint in the region and the world that was very much dung xiaoping's very much Jung zamins very much who Gentiles strategy as of the party's Central work conference on Foreign Affairs and in November December of 2014 Xi Jinping changed strategic course he did so formally he did so in explaining to the party's entire International policy establishment military foreign policy the intelligence apparatus and the rest but China was now going to embrace a new strategy of fun fire your way or striving for achievement and the object of striving for achievement was to change the reality on the ground in order to change the international and Regional status quo in a Direction More compatible with Chinese interests and more consistent globally with Chinese values and so that too has been an animating force in the structural changes we see at play in U.S China relations over the last decade or so number one a change in the objective balance of power between them in China's favor number two Xi Jinping departing calls from his predecessor in order to reach out and to change the status quo which brings me to the third driving Factor underneath all of the above which is the United States decision as of about 2017 to change strategic course in response and it was in November of 2017 that then National Security advisor H.R McMaster enunciated a new National Security strategy of the United States entitled strategic competition and his conclusion was that the old strategy of strategic engagement with China albeit strategic engagement with hedge which was predicated on the idea of incorporating China fully within the international economic system fully with International political system in order that when China did emerge as the world's largest economy it would work within the rules of the system as it already existed that was the assumption in fact he didn't have an assumption that China would become a democracy though that is often said that was ultimately a decision for the Chinese system and the Chinese people themselves it did have an assumption that it would become part of what um then the U.S deputy secretary of state Bob zeldick said in 2005 of becoming a stakeholder in the international economic system as it existed and unfolded since 1945. so the United States concluded that XI jinping's change of strategic course meant that China was now headed in a different direction and was beginning to establish an International System over time with its own Chinese characteristics and that therefore America's centrality to the pre-existing system was under direct Challenge and threat so the Americans changed course themselves and since the election the Biden Administration this strategic doctrine of of competition has itself become entrenched on a bipartisan basis in the United States if you look carefully at Secretary of State blinkens Annunciation of the administration's China strategy which he did an event which I hosted in Washington with the Asia Society in May of this year if you look at Jake Sullivan the National Security advisors New National Security strategy of September of this year and The New National defense strategy of just last month together with the new set of export controls imposed by the United States against China on high technology exports most particularly semiconductors this Frame of strategic competition is now entrenched in the U.S body politic so the reason I begin our discussion this evening by saying why are we having this competition this strategic competition is that there are animating factors at work changing the balance of power moving in China's Direction Change in Chinese National strategy under Xi Jinping changing the Status Quo regionally and globally and a U.S decision to respond strategically by changing course on its own part uh encapsulated in this doctrine of strategic competition so to conclude these remarks before we go to the conversation with Jocelyn the purpose of the book is not to challenge that reality because it is the reality I could wish it was different it's not so I'm not in the business of sprinkling Scandinavian fairy dust across the top in the hope that everyone hops in the jacuzzi and tomorrow morning has a better understanding of each other and it's all right by 11 o'clock tomorrow morning regrettably international relations doesn't quite work that way it's a hard realist business instead the argument I put is a much more simple one it says at present we have unmanaged strategic competition and it's dangerous there are no rules of the road under unmanaged strategic competition there are no strategic guard rails increasingly it's been a free-for-all for the last five years planes are almost colliding with each other uh Naval vessels almost colliding with each other rolling crises in and around Taiwan a rolling exchanges between Japanese and Chinese forces in the East China Sea over senkoku diadal challenges to the question of Maritime claims in the South China Sea between China and the six asean claiman states on the other rolling clashes on the Sono Indian border and invisible to us all this rolling battle in cyber and space which happens virtually every day of the week and becoming increasingly Sharp the problem with each of those things is they are capable of triggering any day of the week War by accident through incident escalation crisis conflict War turbocharged by nationalism on either side of the equation Chinese or American and if we are sober students of international relations we will conclude that in fact there are too many precedents for this littered across the taudry pages of international relations history the alternative which is the subject to this book is what I call Managed strategic competition what do I mean by that again it's not sprinkling Scandinavian pixie dust across the top it's saying at present neither side in my analysis and most people would concur with it at this stage at least neither side has an interest in war by Design there's a reason for that over Taiwan each side fears that it might lose because the balance of power is still so tight between them therefore the question I ask is therefore how can we reduce the risk of War by accident in the period ahead I argue therefore in the book for a set of strategic guardrails rules of the road a set of principles within a framework of managed strategic competition which make it possible to navigate this relationship between the two sides this would happen have to occur within the five major conflict zones of Taiwan East China Sea South China Sea the Korean Peninsula cyber and space the second component of managed strategic competition is on the question of if you're going to agree on the First with each other then the rest of the competitive relationship between you can be conducted in non-lethal terms you can have a competitive relationship and the rest of security policy the rest of foreign policy in trade and investment in technology and in ideology and as I say in the book May the best system win without blowing each other's brains out on the way through which is the risk of unmanaged strategic competition and the third element and I conclude on this of managed strategic competition is within such a joint framework to carve out sufficient political and diplomatic space for each side now to re-engage with each other and the institutions of global governance to advance Global public goods together like climate change action like maintaining Global Financial and economic stability as well as ensuring that we can do a better job next time on the question of global pandemic management than we did last time some would say well that's all terribly idealist of you Kevin as I say in the book okay might be the case but please come up with a better idea because I will happily shred every copy of my book if someone does and I've had this challenge out for six months I have quibbles at the margin but no alternative construct for how we manage this mess what I find interesting is that the Soviet Union and the United States embarked upon a similar program following their own near-death experience in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. those two countries came within a whisker of blowing themselves away and most of the rest of us with them and what happened in the subsequent 30 years was that despite the rolling competitive tension in that cold war they didn't reach that precipice again they evolved rules of the road they evolved some strategic guard rails they'd evolve some amelioration mechanisms and as we look at what Biden and Xi Jinping agreed to in Bali just last week I think it's worth reflecting on inch by inch I sense that both these sides are crab walking towards a concept of managed strategic competition prior to that there was no rules of the road but now President Biden speaks in terms of the need to stabilize the Strategic relationship the need for strategic guard rails the need for managed competition and others would speak also of the need for rules of the road the Chinese have found this harder to move towards but as a think tank we deal with the Chinese government and ministers all the time because we are not aligned with one side or the other we take our responsibility as a think tank seriously in the United States and what I see in XI jinping's language is a crab walk also now talking about the need to put protections around the Strategic relationship and furthermore he uses the word which is getting close towards the concept of a strategic guardrail he's talking now for the first time about the need for the bilateral relationship to have an unchen Wang a security safety net underneath the overall relationship and to quote him or paraphrase him to prevent a crisis and conflict and furthermore he's commissioned and Biden has accepted senior level officials led by the U.S Secretary of State to begin the negotiation of these will it work I don't know but we are in a somewhat better position this week than we were prior to last week because there has been a resolve on both their parts to move towards an attempt to stabilize this relationship the um long-term challenge of Taiwan remains this may see us through the next several years but whether it sees us through the ultimate question of XI jinping's judgment come the late 20s and early 30s the time has come to move on Taiwan is an entirely separate question that would be a question of War by Design not war by accident for which the response must be continued amplification of deterrence so that the Chinese military commanders at the end of the day conclude doing that would still be too far too risky for them I thank you for your attention [Applause] foreign we just said again John you're very tall very intelligent and very good looking [Applause] well it's really um I've been quite a week for for both of us I think I know your your book has had many many launches this week I've been taking part also in a workshop at the Anu about the contributions to scholarship by Dr Pierre rickmans who was I think your lecturer when you were studying supervisor supervisor yes supervisor of your doctoral thesis um it leads me to the first question that I was thinking ask you is I've just come from that Workshop why I'm sure lots of people ask you but what was it that prompted you to take up the study of Chinese and an interest in Chinese culture a lack of Fascination for a career in Queensland animal husbandry that was the alternative career path for me a very it's a pretty simple thing we're all influenced by our mothers most of us are anyway and uh and in my case I grew up on a farm in rural Queensland and it was a perfectly happy bucolic life but sitting on a horse one day with my father he asked me whether my future would be beef or dairy and I thought maybe not and I was only about 10 at the time and Mum simultaneously would just feed me books sometimes to just disappear and read so I began reading books about actually architecture and I remember this book on classical architecture which up the back of these couple of pages on classical Chinese architecture Rubes and I thought this is really interesting and so and then when China entered the United Nations in 1971 was readmitted to the United Nations as the People's Republic of China my mother walked into my room and handed me that day's paper which the headline China takes seat in the U.N and my mum who'd never been to high school she's a nurse nurse during the war said this will change the world there you go and so that was a long time ago then I watched with wrapped uh Fascination on our black and white television in rural Queensland Catherine as golf did what Goff did in 71 and 72 and I thought whatever he's doing I'd like to do that Here's the final part which brings these narratives together as a 15 year old I wrote to the Australian foreign minister EG whitlam as you know Goff is not just prime minister but for the first season was also foreign minister he didn't trust any of his colleagues to be foreign minister and I said Dear Mr whitlam um I'm this is the subjects I'm doing at school I think I'd like to be a diplomat one day what should I do you're sincerely Kevin from Queensland I'm 15 years old that's right this letter comes back from golf signed see that signature down there signed with that signature saying dear Kevin thank you for your letter I encourage you in your studies you should really study a foreign language preferably an Asian language and then I would encourage you then to go to university and apply to the Department of Foreign Affairs you're sincerely EG whitlam foreign minister and prime minister of Australia and being a good queenslander we just take orders from above so back to Pierre impairments a remarkable scholar so he was as you said he was the supervisor of your doctoral thesis on his thesis you're honest honestly on the central figure of the 1978 democracy wall Wedington uh well who was an advocate of what he called the fifth modernization so how did you come to choose that topic and do you think that it was a good introduction to start with this sort of anti-establishment dissident philosophy or has it in fact colored your view of China since then the reason I chose that is the thesis which I wrote in 1980 um was because as you know you had this extraordinary and tumultuous period of political change in China between the death of Mao in September of 76 um the rehabilitation for the third time of dung Xiaoping in 7778 then the accompanied by of course The Purge of the gang of four and those around them what fascinated me was to be honest not so much weijing shung the individual but what fascinated me was the surrounding domestic politics of China at the time as it left the cultural revolution model of domestic politics and sought to embrace a more regular form of politics and the Massive Internal convulsions within the party in that 76-79 period and most of the thesis deals with that I did translate weijing Chung's trial in full it was smuggled out to Ming Bal in Hong Kong got a hold of the text and then no one had put it into English at that stage so I did but the principal prism of Interest was to understand the power dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party on then we both found ourselves in Beijing in 1985. um when the Ambassador was the imminent development economist roscano and he was a very close advisor to to Bob Hawke and he had quite a vision for how relations between Australia and and China might develop he saw that our economies were use his term complementary and that further engagement with China with Northeast Asia including Korea and Japan would be to the advantage of all the party is concerned so there seemed to be at that time a great many opportunities to doing things we were not short of initiatives and it was also a time when visiting ministers from Canberra would almost had to be cautioned not to be too enthusiastic about the potential for development [Music] um so they were also on the Chinese side I think there were some quite enthusiastic people who responded to the opportunities including um huyabang who came to visit Australia and George Zion and you mentioned in your books that you met in when when he visited the embassy I can remember that dinner too I also remember his return invitation after his visit to Australia I don't remember were you at that rather School quite remember yeah he was a um I guess not pushing it too far say he was an eccentric individual uh somebody for instance who thought that Chopsticks were not hygienic and the dinner was served in western style with the portions already placed on plates and to be eaten with knife and and Fork there's an indie small indication of his particularity I wonder if you have any more stories about uh or Georgian that you might share with us yeah certainly I was part of both those sets of visits we are bang I didn't come to Australia with him obviously because I was in the embassy in Beijing but I do remember the farewells um in Beijing and I remember all the other Chinese government ministers who would come who came to the Residence at the embassy that you couldn't move for the number of food tasters who were there because in the great tradition of Chinese Elite politics you're always frightened of the emperor being poisoned and so there were just food tasters everywhere what's your job on a food taster okay good and so there was this bucket load of food tasters it's one small memory well I remember building on your recollection of huia bung's modest eccentricity was when we went to Sichuan did you come out to Chengdu with us you know I wasn't so I was doing the advancing in Chengdu and uh Chengdu in those days those days and here we're talking about 1980 five this is hawkey's visit uh to China 86 after the we are bang visit but we are bangers till General Secretary of the party and um and we get out to Chengdu and Chengdu in those days was and uh it was a little backward like there was nothing going on in Chengdu a couple of pandas and that was about it and uh and and we were we're encouraging horkie in the Australian business Community to take western China seriously but what I remember was the dinner at whichever leadership compound we were at where you're absolutely right at the dinner there was huiabad hosting with this massive set of Western Cutlery so as you know if you're having a Chinese meal you've got one set of Chopsticks and then you just pile food onto your plate believing that we had to be respectful to the westerners for every single Chinese dish had a new knife and fork so you'd sit down and it's like this ocean of forks and ocean of knives at the either side of either plate let's kind of fun so but I remember him being a live wire Enthusiast for Australia any kiwis in this room new zealanders good I'm about to be insulting pronounced to the Australians he said oh Donald Trump [Laughter] he said Australia Australia relations are full of diversity and different tastes and flavors there's a lot going on is it the New Zealand relationship's pretty boring so my kiwi cousins never got over that when we briefed them in full on the conversation well of course both we are bombing and jobs Young fell foul of factionalism within the Chinese Communist party which seems to be a continuing feature of a particular perhaps particularly of a one-party state but even in our own politics people can fall foul of factionalism and you and others who are you talking about God never get your friends to interview you yeah Fulton what were you doing that night do you think the faction factionalism [Laughter] is it inevitable in in politics thinks that perhaps it's the regarding against factionalism that is one of the driving forces of XI jinping's current policies well as you know the whole Chinese term for faction um is a negative term uh even back in uh Chinese classical history the whole idea of factions in the Chinese Court was something which was double Hall and so um and certainly in the Contemporary period as well the number of people the daily editorials have been written in the last 75 years warning about factualism okay so you've won about factionalism because it exists and has long existed within the Chinese Communist Party in many respects I think because the Communist party does not have the automatic stabilizers of a regular election we have a regular election in Western democracies which is whatever you think of the mob in power of the mob who are not in power ultimately the legitimacy process is sorted out through the Ballot Box we go and vote for good or for ill there's a new government and outside of the United States everyone expect accepts the Revolt the result January 6. um the Chinese Communist Party being a revolutionary leninist party doesn't accept that principle at all they regard we on the center left in Australia is a bunch of soft sentimental sentimental parliamentarians it's a split that goes back to the second International in 1886. but in the Chinese Communist party because there is no regular as it were mechanism to sort out success and failure then it does become a brutal factional struggle for power internally that's the truth of it Mal ran a constant series of factional campaigns against those who he designated to be rightists rightists and Splitters and that's before 49. look what happened at yanan quite apart from what happened in the uh fun yo the anti-writers campaign and then subsequently uh in his fight back after his failure in the Great Leap Forward roll the clock on after the cultural revolution there was a fight back from the other faction which is concerned about the success of the economy rather than the pure purity of marxist leninist politics led by dung led by Zhang that by who and led by let's call it the Communist Youth League faction all of whom wanted to re-prioritize economic growth rather than class purity and so they prevailed for the better part of the next 35 years and Xi Jinping now has reservations about the predominance of that group which is why at the 20th party Congress you see again the last remaining representatives of that group The Kitchen removed and therefore there is now one faction it's called the Xi Jinping faction he thinks so you thank you for you you we know that your your book is typhold um about reference to XI jinping's China not just China so it's all about she really and you've also already made some comments about what you think drives she as as a what motivates him um but do you think that just now you're when you're reflecting on you know back to Yana and of course his father was a leader in the it might save and rescued the the stragglers at the end of the Long March um so he was there in yenan and that's where the uh the family commitment to to ma to Marxism begins there is that the main driver do you think or is it a kind of patriotism of nationalism often in the China analytical world outside of China we assume that there is a binary alternative which is either you are a Marxist learnerist or you're in patriotic nationalist my thesis the one that I've just written is that Xi Jinping is both he is I describe his shujiyakwan his worldview as being one of marxist nationalism now as a matter of logic that is a problem because marxists are internationalists not nationalists but as you know Marxist leninism even is applied by Mao and the earliest days of the party after he assumed control of the system from about Sunni conference on from about 1935-36 onwards if you read the early documents it's both about ideology and it's about the party being equipped to uh uniquely equipped to realize China's national salvation so I see Xi Jinping as very much being in that Mao tradition of marxist nationalism he's moving to the left on leninism moving to the left on Marxism as far as politics and the economy is concerned but he's moving much more assertively on nationalism than China's foreign policy and security policy agreement so that's why I call him a Marxist nationalist um there's a preference in Chinese thinking or or writing to to make numbered lists of things I think everybody has now become sort of standard in in English we all know about the gang of four uh perhaps we don't know about some of the other numbered lists or the for instance the five poisons or the six arts of the gentleman as uh the Gang in modern history we've had dog xiaoping's four modernizations had the three represents and Xi Jinping has the two establishes and I think perhaps you may have caught this virus from from China because in your book you've got the ten Circles of seeking Ping's political that's because I wanted to be bigger than all of them and then you've got 10 scenarios for possible solutions uh were you conscious that you were adopting this kind of Chinese formulaic or do you naturally think like that well you know something Jocelyn a Descartes was not Chinese and he thought a numerical sequence as well and I'm a member of the western Academy I'm not part of the Chinese Academy now I just enumerate as Faulkner will remember from multiple cabinet meetings because I find it easier to remember so and furthermore there is so much what I describe as sludge written about contemporary China that I'd much rather crystallize the arguments in manners which people can can grasp accept or reject rather than just wallowing around in conceptual marshmallow well I've found another list which is which is buried in your book but not um completely obvious so I'd like to offer it to you and that is your book is about the three traps and the first one that you mentioned is the thucydides Trap and the second one that you mentioned is the middle income trap and the third one that you mentioned is the debt trap particularly in China's Belton Road initiative I don't know if you were conscious that you have these three traps scattered through your book and I think they're all very significant and they all valid the included in the book I wondered if you never thought of them as as like in a series like that I'll certainly unconscious of each of them and as elucidated in the book but they all deal with different parts of one aggregate reality facilities trap is about geopolitics uh the middle income trap is obviously about China's economic trajectory and the debt trap is systemic to all economies uh when you elevate borrowings as a percentage of GDP that you get to a point of nascent Financial instability so you know the first part the first trap on geopolitics is clear uh Allison's book Graham Allison's book called the city of the uh he doesn't call it lucidities trap he calls it um destined for War written in 1950 2015. that's why I called mine the avoidable war because Graeme Ellison's book in the United States became a meme and Congressman begin to began to imbibe this meme that we were destined for war and I'd go oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no and so and that's why I took six months out to write a narrative under thucydides trap it's based on of course the acidity says through the Peloponnesian Wars classical Sparta classical Athens Rising Powers established powers and um what happens in their respective behaviors has the pre-existing balance is uh upset uh to the point where you can either see preemptive action from either side so the analogies with the United States and China of course are clear on the dead trap the Chinese have been worried about that for a long time because of the history of Latin America income the economic development reaching a certain per capita income middle income status usually twelve thousand dollars a year and for some reasons in many countries around the world stagnates at that and doesn't break through into advanced economy status often because of questions of productivity as you know and the final one on debt there is a less robust set of mathematics about it but what point does your debt to GDP ratio cause inherent instabilities within your domestic credit markets to the point that they freeze irrespective of whether you have international credit markets at work simultaneously through that debt being dollar denominated or foreign currency denominated which is not the case in in China but if you were to sit around a table of the standing committee of the Polar Bureau all three of these challenges are perceived reflected on and being responded to which is why I use the terms in the book I think with time for just one last question and I'd like to turn to the question of human rights which is becoming more and more prominent not only in international diplomacy relations with China with other countries for instance with Iran at the moment but also in trade just to give one example there is a lot of discussion at the moment about solar panels which are made of Polly's carbonate which is produced in xinjiang under it's claimed forced labor conditions and that's a question of what we do about it's almost impossible to verify once a product goes into the international trade market you don't know which part of it has been produced under forced labor conditions and which parts of it are are acceptable so it's a becoming an extremely complicated issue in trade quite apart from the issues that might be raised in bilateral diplomatic relations we seem to have a particular problem with China's policies towards the uyghurs and other ethnic minorities Muslim minorities in xinjiang Province how do you think that they should these issues should best be addressed well any framework for Australian strategy towards China will automatically incorporate human rights it's not a question of choice because if we choose to ignore that we cease to be Australian and we are part of a universal human rights tradition sort of function of being from quote the West unquote the reason I say that is because Australia in 1948 signed and ratified the universal declaration and the universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was drafted by Eleanor Roosevelt and part of her drafting committee was senior representatives of the then nationalist government of China and the then Indian government of China the idea that this was a western construct the 1948 document is empirically wrong and if you look carefully at its Drafting and the autobiographical Reflections on its drafting this was not attempt an attempt to reflect you know the United States Constitution in an international instrument and it doesn't so when we talk Loosely about human rights I'm always of a mind that we go back to the foundational documents because China has ratified that document Australia has ratified that document in the 1960s there were two further documents the international Covenant and civil and political rights which China has signed but not ratified which we have signed and ratified and the third document is the international Covenant on the social and economic rights which both Australia and China have signed and ratified so you put that together that's the fabric of international law on human rights so therefore my argument is that rather than sort of pick and choose what you choose what you care to identify as being the problem du jour that we anchor all of our engagement with our Chinese friends in the international instruments because that's the universal benchmark and against that Universal Benchmark you would say that the Chinese have achieved extraordinary success in the economic rights of the Chinese people by lifting them out of poverty and they have it's a remarkable achievement you know 700 million people out of poverty now that is extraordinary at the same time on civil and political rights the truth is that if you're from Tibetan from xinjiang and if you are a Tibetan or a uighur then you do not have the same ability to exercise the same freedoms if you're a hun Chinese now the incarceration of uyghurs is on a large scale is documented by the Human Rights Council investigatory investigatory report recently concluded my argument is that is part of an Australian strategy it is one part the others are our alliance with the United States which doesn't mean compliance with the United States on every item of U.S foreign policy the other part of our strategy for managing the China relationship is working hard to advance trade investment and economic engagement to each side's advantage fourthly to work with our Chinese friends in the global institutional Arrangements through the G20 through the UN through the unn Triple C on climate change on Global Financial stability which we did in the global financial crisis I spent so much time on the phone with Chinese leaders during that crisis delivering helping to deliver the outcome which we produced in the G20 Summit in London in March of 2020 2009 and if there's a final principle which I often talk about it's if you're going to disagree with China then a piece of strategic wisdom is this if you're Australians you know the classic Chinese aphorism okay which is kill one to 100. Now That Dope Morrison [Applause] and here is a totally partisan comment but empirically Justified That Dope Morrison never understood and so what does you do you go out and unilateral position on the question of a global investigation the origins of covert 19. nothing wrong with that I had co-authored a similar request as a former prime minister in an open letter in the New York Times with 100 other former heads of government okay so there was no shy eating buy because they're already eating your back there was already a hundred others so if you're going to part company with China just be a bit pragmatic about it take time bring together a coalition of governments in Asia in Europe elsewhere in the world and advance that as a common position and say to our Chinese friends we don't agree with this way forward here are the reasons why and we have this position collectively much harder to have your head blown off like Morrison did what a dope [Applause] thank you very much we do now have some time for some questions from the audience and we have two microphones uh one here and ran is going to go to that side and one here from Amita now my show of hands thank you can I have uh rank have a question here we'll take three at a time so I went here and ran questions in the front here and the gentleman there so can I have this question here first please oh I just got a question because we all know that she is completely has in power and my question is what can we really do as at the international as an international Society to stop it from happening because as you mentioned that she definitely want to reunite China and Taiwan isn't like it but also there's a I think it's a large amount of people in China they also want China to be reunited and the Republic of China Banner rather than PRC Banner of course their voice are always ignored or it's not such a love because it's not allowed but however it's an international Society what can we do to stop it got it thank you can we have the question here please oh hi uh good evening Kevin and thank you appreciate all you've done for Australia and uh I'm just thinking about what you said about I don't know was it fairy dust or something that we need to sprinkle fairy dust down and uh you seem to make it sound like something that's impossible and impractical but uh when I heard you talking about the origin of the uh human rights in with you know those three people you mentioned it seems like that is the basis of that fairy dust that we need to sprinkle down and how can we really get practical about this and bring it down thank you and we have one final question from the gentleman here can we get the microphone to him please Mr Rudd I really appreciate your concern about the possibility of the avoidable war actually happening and how to get away from it um one thing I've really realized recently about the Australian uh situation is that the it's just a small number of people who decide whether Australia goes to a war that's not a defensive War and that small number of people might include a former prime minister that you just referred to and a few other people so I wonder how what is it going to take for the parliament to start taking responsibility for deciding about going to Wars which are not defensive but are as I've heard the term Wars of choice where you go somewhere else and join in a war that's really not about your own territory okay thank you on the first question which is what can we do about the Dynamics of Taiwan and you're right to say that as China's stated policy since 49 to reunite with Taiwan um it is equally right to observe that in the terms of diplomatic recognition with the United States in 72 and in the communiques of that year Shanghai 79 and 82 that the United States has never accepted that that reunification should occur by Armed Force but by negotiation and they'd formed the basis of let's call it the uh the common position on the One China policy and that has always been my Approach and it should be the approach of every future Australian government there is one China and the idea that there could ever be a future Republic of Taiwan is itself um such a fundamentally strategically destabilizing argument that it destroys what the Taiwanese people themselves want which is to maintain the status quo and that is my view that the objective of policy should be to maintain the status quo unless our friends in Taiwan decide they want to become part of a broader Confederation uh with the People's Republic of China at some future point which enables them to pursue their own form of shall we say provincial autonomy so that's kind of my view now how do you do it I think there are two things that are in the world of real policy maybe three the first is the argument outlined in the book and In Articles I've written and now partly reflected in the discourse of the two countries is manage your competitive relationship in a manner which reduces the risk of War by accident and what can the rest of us do the International Community is now urging both China and the United States to do that and if you look carefully their statements in Bali both of them referred to the urgings of the International Community to manage the relationships strategically in a more stable fashion so these propositions do not fall entirely on their fears they know that there is a wider Court of international opinion looking carefully at this and what I've suggested here is a framework through which you do it and variations on a theme I think are reflected in the way in which the two sides May seek to take that forward for what I call the short to medium term second point is for the medium to long term you still run up against the hard question of does China still intend to use Force to obtain Taiwan when it feels that the military and economic balance is more advantageous for itself and there the responsibility for all of us who do not want that to occur is to continue to build forms of persuasive deterrence military Financial economic political and in foreign policy terms with a wide Coalition of states in order to cause Chinese military and economic leaders in the late 20s and the early 30s to conclude that the risk is still too great same thing I think should be done is our Taiwanese friends need to be encouraged much more forcefully to resume a political track with with Beijing at present there is no political dialogue between the two sides the technical reason for that is that the current Taiwanese government refuses to accept the premises of What's called the 1992 consensus now that is an amorphous document in itself for those who have read the 1992 consensus it's a bit like reading the 39 articles of the Anglican Church they could mean anything but as an anglo-catholic I've read that the 39 articles and I can mean anything um but to allow our Taiwanese friends to think that they can just carry on regardless and not pursue a political track with Beijing to look at permutations and combinations for the future with mainland China I think places far too much burden and far too much stress on the U.S relationship and on the US military relationship because of the no political track between Taipei and Beijing guess what it automatically goes into the Washington Beijing track and because that diplomatic relationship has been a mess for five years now it goes into the military track hence the fireworks we see so we need the third element of what I'd recommend just getting our Taiwanese friends to start having some species just quickly on the other two what I meant by Pixie Dust by the way not fairy dust is a technical difference is as follows [Music] normative statements that if only these two countries would get together and really understand what their core interests and values are that they could reach some magical Jung Yong some magical golden memes some magical pinga some magical Darton which which would bring the two sides together is frankly fanciful and the reason I say it's fanciful is that both these countries deeply understand the other strategic Ambitions China wants to take Taiwan by force if necessary America doesn't want that to happen by force and both strategies are being aligned accordingly China wants to become the preeminent Regional and Global Power by mid-century the United States doesn't want to Cease the American Century so for those who when I talk about fairy dust pixie dust it's saying oh I wish they would just talk more and and get on better that cannot be achieved in the midst of such a fundamental strategic competition therefore my argument is let's have some rules around the competition and part of the continuing competition with the between China and the United States is over ideology is over ideation and therefore is over competing doctrines of Rights and Marxist learner's concepts of Rights is vastly different for rights as defined in a liberal democratic tradition but that's part of the contest of ideas for The Wider world and therefore my argument is May the best system win I am a liberal Democrat I make no apology for that I've said so in the early pages of this book the Communist party is a different view of that and finally on the question the role of parliament on the and the question of going to war as John Faulkner knows as a former Minister for defense um on questions of going to war in for example Iraq we the Parliamentary labor party and the Parliamentary opposition formally voted against that in a resolution which was put forward by then prime minister John Howard I remember speaking to the resolution as a shadow foreign minister at the time so there are Parliamentary mechanisms should you formally bind the executive government in times of National Security duress by the by the aspirations of the parliament itself I'm not prepared to reach that conclusion it depends entirely as they say on the circumstances and anyone who's occupied the position of Defense Minister in particular understands that thank you Mr Rudd would you like to take two more questions yeah what's how's our time going we're running uh uh well how long would you like to stay back and sign books is the question I'll take two more that'll be great and um this is the Fatal point of an evening when you think you're doing okay you ask a couple more questions and then in comes the whistling exorcet to take you out and leave you as a smudge on the on the wall but go ahead well thank you Mr Brad we have one question here and then after this gentleman here ran we have the gentleman in the blue shirt there and we'll have to be our last question up you please thank you um thank you Mr good to see you again here um I have a question that your Chinese colleague president Xi Jinping probably going to be wrong is third term very shortly uh he'll be what he will be running his third term yeah he started he's doing well he won by 2280 votes to zero yeah that's the vote I wanted in the caucus in 2010 and Faulkner didn't deliver the numbers got uh probably most powerful leader in Chinese recent history and if you look at his names of the members of the standing committee of the political Bureau in China this could be the most United Administration that will give his him the confidence to take Taiwan and we do believe that must be on his to-do list for the third term and possibly not in a peaceful way so I just wonder if that happened if China took Taiwan U.S military what consequences would China face does America enter the Western world have the capability to cut off China from the rest of the world economically or politically um okay I got it thank you and we have the question up there please yeah um a slightly different crowd to last night Kevin your former Belfor Center colleague Professor Xiang Lan Shin gave a talk two weeks ago at the Watson Institute where he approached the subject of what President Biden was talking about when asked directly whether they would defend Taiwan he then alluded to and you haven't mentioned it tonight the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act um and his many other commentators at the moment are looking to nuance and recall some of the details of the debate that then Senator Biden had and made in comments about the Taiwan Relations Act should we re-looked aspects of that part two Professor Ian Dean Martin I always worry about two parts yeah exactly a part to Professor Ian D Henry of the Anu strategy studies Center has done some original analysis on the cables and text of the negotiations on the answers treaty um and the granular detail of that shows that there was no concept that people would come to defend Taiwan the cables from Sir Percy spender Allegra Spenders grandfather made it extremely clear that there was no intention of going to war and people will remember the time that the Korean war was bubbling along and the seventh fleet was sailing up and down the time and Strait protecting Formosa I think I've got it good thank you for that I knew I should have gone early the a couple of thoughts essentially the first question is how does the how would the United States respond um and I think if it was to happen now first point is I do not believe it is currently in XI jinping's planning for it to happen in his third term the reason for that is I do not believe that the Chinese calculus about the balance of military power across the Taiwan Straits is sufficiently decisive for them to be guaranteed of of winning remember suns are being far The Art of War paragraph one war is a great matter of state if you lose the war you lose the state quote don't you love classical Chinese snow and that is etched into the cerebral cortex to every single Chinese leader and so and as you know from other of the Seven Chinese military Classics the other Chinese aphorism is that victories best secured without firing a shot so under those circumstances I do not see a credible scenario where you would have War by Design during XI jinping's third term I'm much more concerned about the fourth term and the reason I'm much more concerned about the fourth term is that China's military financial and economic and technological plan for the next five years is to overcome the deficiencies it currently faces in order to deliver the overwhelming shock and awe which it believes it needs in order to not replicate the military idiocy of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine um on the what would the United States do on the under the current Biden Administration given the four statements to date by President Biden that the United States would militarily defend Taiwan if he was still the president United States I think it is inconceivable that he would not act militarily and I believe that's also the Assumption of the Chinese number two what else would the United States do it would seek to mobilize the sort of Financial and trade sanctions against China from the rest of the world that is already deployed uh with the rest of the world against Russia and with Monumental consequences given that these are the world's two largest economies not Russia which is a relatively minor economy number three and I think this is the big variable is over the next five to ten years what will be the composition of U.S presidential politics beyond the biod administration will the Republicans come back will it be a neo-isolationist Republican party influenced by trumpianism which actually is not Ford leaning on the question of Alliance solidarity or are we post that trumpian phase in Republican Politics whereby the Republican Party returns to a mainstream more mainstream pro-alliance America in the world not America isolationist view that's the open question for the future for which I cannot make a prediction on the Taiwan Relations Act and its uh its Provisions it's always worth reading the tra because it's pretty robust remember when Carter finally extended diplomatic recognition in 1979 uh the Congress then turned around and legislated and said well thank you very much President Carter but here are the constraints um and Carter did not seek to veto the Taiwan Relations Act he signed it into law and it provides among other things a sufficient guarantee of military supplies for Taiwan to ensure its capacity to defend itself against Chinese Mainland military aggression the future and it constitutes the fund the Keystone of American current strategy together what President Biden now refers to routinely as America's six assurances to the Taiwanese um by the way keep your eyes peeled on the other thing going through the Congress at the moment called the Taiwan Policy Act the TPA which is uh one of the more lunatic pieces of American legislation I have seen it says that Taiwan should be designated in the future as an American treaty Ally and furthermore says that taiwan's representative office in the United States should be redesignated using the Lithuanian formula as the tro the Taiwan representative office both of these things go to the core of the one China policy and therefore run themselves right up against the three communiques and therefore become in my argument causes bellai I think the Democrats and President Biden will seek to take out the most difficult parts of this legislation but we are watching it very carefully as it progresses its way through the Congress and on the anzas provisions there are only two provisions of the anzas treaty and they are as follows that the Australia and the United States is the two Contracting parties shall consult to meet the common danger if either a the Armed Forces divide Contracting parties come under attack in the Pacific area or B if the Metropolitan territory of the Contracting parties is attacked and that is a commitment to consult to meet the common Danger in the 70 odd years since uh 71 years since ansys was announced by Percy spender and Dean Atchison I think in 1951 uh it's only been invoked once and that was on September 11 when the Metropolitan territory of the United States was attacked and that actually triggered the so-called war against terrorism so as to his future application on any other Pacific scenario no responsible Australian prime minister or former prime minister or foreign minister or former foreign minister or defense minister or Former Defense Minister comments publicly on the application of the anzas treaty to any future strategic scenarios it is not a productive thing to do and the only exception to that is the idiot Dutton who has done so well on behalf of the whitlam Institute and its board thank you to our speakers for the generosity of time [Applause] and of course thank you for your many many insights understanding China's Grand strategy the order it has created and the constraints on this exercise of power may help Statesmen avoid catastrophic miscalculations and to secure further gains upon the promise of 50 years ago might I please invite my colleague Professor Jing Han the director of The Institute for Australian and Chinese arts and culture to the front to offer a vote of thanks to our speakers Jing foreign [Applause] thank you The Honorable Kevin radt AC and Professor Jocelyn Shea am for this great conversation insightful enlightening and engaging I still remember the excitement of having the first Prime Minister of Australia who is a flaunt in Chinese and I worked at SBS for 23 years at SPS subtitling we divided people in the world into two categories one monolingual two bilingual or multilingual who see the world very differently I also remember the thrill of subtitling the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's speech in Chinese into English and in that five minutes of speech the Prime Minister used the word therefore therefore 20 times but today I didn't hear one time you see therefore slave um those of us Born Chinese are very lucky because we were born speaking Chinese which is a very complex and intriguing language to learn that is why Chinese people are super appreciative of Mr Rudd and Professor Jocelyn Che who have learned Chinese so well [Applause] we are also very lucky to be able to claim Professor Joslyn Shea as I was as John introduced to before Jocelyn was the funding director of this institute Institute for Australian Chinese Arsenal culture and she's a current lead the adjunct professor of this institute Justin's shop mind a wide range of knowledge and intellectual power are hard to match she has all our admiration and respect she's just an inspiration [Applause] and as a token of our appreciation John and I have little presence to present to the two speakers today this one is a set of five um greeting cards uh made of paper cuts um they are all Australian flowers and the plants native one they're made by a very famous Australian Chinese artist accordingly and we have exhibited her her artworks and this is a set of artworks is called after black summer I also have this one this is the Chinese translation of a Great Australian indigenous writer Melissa lukashenko uh her mice Franklin Awards a winning novel too much lip and then Chinese version that I made was published in China this year and launched in the Australian Embassy in Beijing so I like to give visit to Mr rutt and I hope and he will testify that my Chinese translation is excellent thank you so much [Applause] I have given my book to Jocelyn before so thank you very much [Applause] I won't hold you up much longer but we too have a few gifts for uh Jocelyn Che and Mr Rudd um might I also invite everyone to reception immediately following this where you'll have an opportunity to view the special art exhibition the lyrical Language by Chinese Australian artist Wang Lan and of course to take up your opportunity to purchase a book of the avoidable war and to get it signed by its author once again please join me thanks and then you get a free set of steak knives but once again please thank uh joining me to thank the speakers in the usual way [Applause]

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Length: 101min 10sec (6070 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 06 2022