Expert sinologist and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has written a stunning tour de force on developing Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping and the existential challenges it presents for Asia, Europe and the US. Rudd narrates the book and is fluent in Mandarin so there are none of the amateurish mistakes one sometimes encounters in audiobooks on China.
Rudd starts out by outlining the key ten concentric circles of current Chinese policy which include, fundamentally for Xi, staying in power personally and keeping China under tightened control of the Chinese Communist Party and an increasingly authoritarian surveillance state which has deemphasized and even prohibited talk of human rights and democracy. Rudd makes crystal clear Xi’s goals in a way that is hardly subject to dispute and lays out a remarkably thoughtful and well considered analysis of Xi’s future plans which include building a Chinese military that can defeat the US in combat in Asia, can retake Taiwan even if defended by the US, Australia and Japan and extending China’s maritime presence in the South and East China Sea to the exclusion of all other countries which might challenge its power.
Rudd points out that after Xi is confirmed as effective dictator for life at the November 2022 Party Congress, Xi expects to move advance his military goals toward reclaiming Taiwan in the late 2020s or early 2030s when he is still in power. At the same time, China has through its Belt and Road projects and numerous Asian diplomatic and economic and UN initiatives filled the power vacuum left by the US’s abandonment of its traditional international commitments and role to form new alliances from which the US is effectively excluded.
Rudd also outlines in detail the tremendous damage done to the US international position and diplomatic alliances by the US government’s chaotic withdrawal or disruption of its international alliances under the Trump Administration’s grotesque diplomatic incompetence which left in tatters so many important prior US alliances. The damage has been irreparable but the US still has some opportunities to strengthen new alliances like the Quad to restrain Chinese expansion. But we are far behind both in planning and execution of the necessary steps to prevent China from pushing out the US and becoming the world’s greatest power. It is not too late to respond, but the US appears to lack the determination and focus to do what is necessary while Xi is laser focused on getting what he wants and on pushing US power out of Asia.
At the end of the book Rudd outlines in detail what he sees as the necessary steps to protect Taiwan and contain Chinese power within reasonable limits but acknowledges this could easily be a losing battle. The defense and foreign ministers of every North American, European and Asian government should read this book. It is important and it is alarming.