US-China relations: ex-Australia PM Rudd sees re-engagement but no return to ‘status quo ante’

China understands it’s ‘impossible’ to interrupt long-standing security ties between US and Australia, Japan and South Korea, says Rudd at the Post’s China Conference: United States

Restraint on Hong Kong and Taiwan and resumption of military-to-military communications are key to improved ties

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Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has recommended a “period of restraint” for Beijing in its relationships with the US, Japan and Australia. Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

Published: 11:15pm, 1 Dec 2020Updated: 6:29am, 2 Dec 2020

A return to stability in US-China ties is possible if both sides acknowledge that it takes “two to tango” and keep open minds on seemingly intractable subjects such as the future of Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Rudd, speaking at the China Conference: United States organised by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, lauded the experience of US President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy team, noting that his candidate for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan, the putative national security adviser, “understand China and Asia very well”.

The new team, while comprising seasoned Asia hands, is likely to “exhibit new levels of policy creativity in dealing with China”, he said, adding that “we should not just assume a return to patterns from the past”.

“The challenge for China will be to respond early in similar fashion, given that we all know in Beijing the foreign policy decision-making processes can sometimes be slow,” Rudd said in the virtual interview with the Post’s deputy executive editor, Zuraidah Ibrahim.

Still, the Biden administration will seek to swiftly restabilise the US-China relationship to avoid unnecessary escalation through accidents or miscalculations in Taiwan or the South China Sea, said Rudd, who is now president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Re-engagement on areas of mutual interest such as North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, dealing with the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine dissemination as well as climate change could prove to be “confidence building” exercises that aid in the restabilisation process, Rudd said.

A file photo from 2013 shows then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia speaking at the official launch of the Labor Party’s federal campaign. Photo: AFP