Kevin Rudd: Answering the Peaceful Rise Question

(Beijing) – Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has spent much of his time since stepping down from office in late 2013 answering questions over whether China's rise will be peaceful.

His answer is yes. As long as China and the United States can develop a common strategic narrative, they should be able to avoid the "Thucydides trap," he writes in a report published in April, referring to a rising power inevitably clashing violently with an established one.

He wrote the report as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a position he took in February last year.

In an exclusive interview with Caixin on April 23, Rudd said a common strategic narrative means China and the United States should be realistic and constructive in handling their disagreements, and have as a common goal sustaining, improving and reforming the existing regional and global rules-based order.

Rudd said that a doctrine set down by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping requiring the country to keep a low profile worked for 35 years, but that it is now changing. China under Xi Jinping has taken a much more confident and proactive approach to the outside world. To prevent this from leading to severe conflicts with the United States, Beijing must seek strategic common ground with Washington, Rudd says.

Excerpts of his interview follow.

Caixin: You said in your report that a common strategic narrative for the U.S.-China relationship today is both possible and necessary. Could you elaborate on that?

Kevin Rudd: Sure. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the last 25 years, I don't think there has been a common narrative of any description. I think it's important because the Chinese and American political systems are very big. You have multiple players in this relationship; therefore people need to understand what overall framework they're working within. And secondly, when I say it's important, it has to be a framework or a narrative which is able to accommodate fundamental disagreements, but also substantive cooperation at the same time, rather than saying that cooperation is only conditional on resolving fundamental disagreements.

In the past, China's engagement with the rest of the world was essentially the doctrine laid down by Deng Xiaoping of "tao guan yang hui" (hide one's capacities and bide one's time) and "jue bu dang tou" (don't seek leadership). That has held for 35 years, but it's no longer true. So we now have a much more confident, a much more active or proactive, Chinese policy in the world. I think the time has come in this new period to look for new language. Not just language to sound elegant, but the key thing is a concept which means something in China, which means something in America, which means something in both Chinese and English, and is capable of providing some guidance for the overall framework of the relationship. This is why I've chosen constructive realism, common purpose.

China and the U.S. share many goals, but also have conflicts. How is a common purpose established?

We are dealing with a culture here in China which has a long tradition of yin and yang. So you are able to make things which appear to be conflicting actually work together as a whole. The truth is this: There are things where the United States and China disagree fundamentally, for example, arms sales to Taiwan. Everyone knows who's got what position. Can I foresee that that is capable of being solved anytime soon? No. That's just the truth. I just take it as a reality. But at the same time, on the constructive side of this relationship, there's a whole series of things that America and China can do together, bilaterally, regionally, globally. What I argue about common purpose is this: If you are able to accumulate enough political capital and diplomatic capital through one form of cooperation after another, suddenly your box of political capital gets bigger and you can use some of that capital to solve some of these really difficult problems in the future. Common purpose is: Let's find a way to resolve these fundamental differences in the future when there is more trust.

The other common purpose is that both the Chinese and American people instinctively prefer order over chaos. When I look at the international system today I see a lot of chaos. I see an order which is under challenge from everybody, whether it's ISIS, cyber security and global pandemics. China and America may seem as though they have different formulas for the future global order, but what unites them is they want a rules-based order, and this becomes a common challenge to both countries.

The common challenges you mentioned are all global problems. Most conflicts between China and the U.S. are regional. Are you saying that that both countries should freeze their pursuit of these conflicting agendas and devote all energy to building a constructive order?

On what I call the realist side of the relationship, I listed about six or seven areas where we can't foresee any solution anytime soon. The U.S. and China should develop a protocol for managing each one of them, so that none of them, individually, is capable of exploding the entire relationship because I don't think that's good for anybody. At the same time, on my constructive side, you are advancing progress bilaterally through the Bilateral Investment Treaty. Regionally, you can be doing other things together as well. For example, I argue strongly for the development of a common regional institution which is inclusive of everybody. That's a regional challenge which I think there could be a meeting of minds on between China and the United States, and the other countries in the region.

You have analyzed possible scenarios of cooperation and confrontation for the China-U.S. relationship in the future. What are the possibilities of each scenario becoming true?

Our futures are not determined for us. You can choose to confront or cooperate, or you can choose to be passive and just see what happens. My argument is that, because you've got a powerful leader like Xi Jinping, and also the president of the United States who has extraordinary power in terms of foreign policy and security policy and the rest, these two individuals, given the offices they occupy, have the capacity to shape, frankly, a new strategic framework for the two countries.

What I'm talking about is not the next month or the next six months. I'm not talking about a problem here or a problem there. I'm talking about long term, the rise of China, America still remaining a global power both militarily and economically. How do you get these two elephants in the living room to work with each other peacefully, without squashing anybody?

When it comes to building a common regional institution, I recommended you take the existing East Asia Summit, a fairly weak regional institution at present. But it's 10 years old, has 18 countries around the table. It has an open agenda on politics, security, environment, economy, and it has an underpinning treaty mandate called the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. What I'd like to see is a habit of cooperation and a culture of problem solving become more normal in the region, as a regional family, rather than everything being bilateral, and everything being therefore very sharp.

Reshaping the Sino-U.S. relationship requires a powerful American president. Considering that President Barack Obama is leaving office in less than two years, do you think it would be better if we hold off until his successor in sworn in?

If you look at the history of the American presidency, many bold foreign policy initiatives are often made in the last two years of a presidential term. It goes back through history. I know it's usually called the lame duck period of a presidency, but I've seen lame ducks fly quite well in the past. So I would not underestimate what President Obama and Xi Jinping could do.

There has been an argument that the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a challenge to the U.S. Do you agree with this view?

From day one, I have supported the AIIB for a very simple reason. If you look across Asia, the unmet demand for infrastructure investment in Asia, calculated by the Asian Development Bank, runs about US$ 8 trillion for the decade from 2010 to 2020. Now, when I look at the available capital of the World Bank, the Asia Development Bank, the AIIB, the Silk Road Fund, it doesn't even get up to half a trillion dollars. So my attitude is pretty pragmatic, which is the more, the merrier; the more diversity, the better. China wishes to make these investments. This is to be welcomed.

The second reason I welcome it is that if we improve connectivity across Asia, and what I describe as this pan-continental project, which has been launched in terms of "yidai yilu" (the belt and road initiatives). If countries in Asia, and particularly countries in South Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia begin to rise more, it is very good for the global economy.

How do you think the Chinese government should handle the "yidai yilu" initiatives?

I think part of the challenge China has at present about "yidai yilu" is to explain it. I've seen the normal Chinese translation: "One Belt, One Road." That doesn't mean a lot to foreigners actually. It means a lot to Chinese people because you are familiar with the history of the Silk Road. But when I try and explain the concept to Americans, I explain it in terms of a pan-continental infrastructure agenda. The reason I use that term, pan-continental, is because when you talk to Americans and Canadians, they have a concept of the pan-continental railways of the 19th century, which opened this vast area to economic development. My suggestion is that China begins explaining this concept as a pan-continental infrastructure agenda, or pan-continental connectivity, because connectivity, whether it's through road, rail, port, telecommunications, digital communications, is the backbone of what is being constructed here.

The key question with this, as with everything else, is: How is this financed? And what are the sources of public and private capital to be deployed in these projects? This is probably the biggest single infrastructure proposal ever put forward in human history. The vision is capable of attracting people, but the nuts and bolts is about money. The question isn't whether or not China has money to invest. It will come down to the financial package for each individual project, the cocktail of public and private capital, the conditionalities, the rate of return on the investment, etc. I'm pretty optimistic that this could be turned into something which is good for China, good for the region, and therefore good for the world. But there'll be lots of bumps in the road.

Can you think of any precedent where a rising power coexisted peacefully with an established power?

I have some very unsuccessful precedents to point to, the Thucydides trap. My colleague Graham Allison at Harvard University has undertaken a massive project looking at the application of Thucydides trap over the past 500 years. He's identified 16 historical cases where you've had rising powers, as it were, challenging established powers. And in 12 out of the 16 cases, they've ended in war. I'm sufficiently galvanized by the negative example of history, which goes down to a very basic feature of human nature: if I think the worst of you, and you think the worst of me, we're probably going to produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. We'll end up taking actions which end up in conflict.

But (it will not happen) if I'm constructive as well as realistic and say I'm going to try and build a good relationship and do things together and change strategic ways of thinking. My report is not based on what I describe as mindless idealism. I don't believe that we can issue a report and China and America come out and sing a song together and then next Monday will proclaim mutual strategic trust. That's nonsense. Some people would wish that would happen, but it's not probable nor is it realistic. I try to balance the two within one strategic concept, not as competing strategic concepts.

What do you think of the role you play now?

I see myself intrinsically as a global citizen. Whatever the platform is, I'm interested in how can I make a small contribution to the resolution of practical problems in the world. I can't see myself returning to Australian politics. It is a tough business and having spent a fair bit of my life doing it, I think it's time to make a more international contribution, which is why I'm more than happy to spend time in the United States, Europe and China. The threats to the globe – including terrorism, including climate change, etc. – may end up being much more substantial, much bigger, and much more threatening than the list of disagreements we have with each other at the moment. So that's why I'm in the global citizens business.