Kevin Rudd talks AUKUS, US-China relations with Centre for Strategic and International Studies

Former PM Kevin Rudd has outlined the “critical” tasks he has ahead in new role as Australia’s ambassador to the US.

Kevin Rudd said one of his first tasks as Australia’s new ambassador to the US will be to help shepherd legislation through Congress to enable the AUKUS deal for the US to sell nuclear submarines to Australia.

“We’re optimistic that under the AUKUS arrangements between our two countries that we are going to move to create a seamless defence, science and technology industry,” the former prime minister and now Australian Ambassador to the US told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

Kevin Rudd at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Picture: YouTube

“Our critical tasks during the course of 2023 is to work with our friends in the administration and the United States Congress to support the passage of the key elements of the enabling legislation,” Mr Rudd said.

“This is not just a piece of admin detail,” he said.

“You’re looking at four or five pieces of legislation, and each with attendant congressional committee oversight. This is a complex process.”

When asked to outline his primary objectives, Mr Rudd noted his numerous discussions with the Albanese government and said he wasn’t “free-wheeling” when it came to his reflections.

He said the top issue was the preservation of peace between the US and China at a time of heightened tensions.

“And that breaks down into what do we do, as the Prime Minister said just recently at [the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore], to build effective guard rails in the relationship between Beijing and Washington given how many near misses there are out there on the high seas and up there in the air right now, which could trigger crisis, conflict and war by accident.”

Mr Rudd said the issue of the effective deterrence of China if it aspires to “take Taiwan” by force was complex.

“That’s a complex equation, it’s not just a simple military equation, it’s a broader equation.” he said.

Kevin Rudd with US President Joe Biden. Picture: Supplied

Mr Rudd said he was very familiar with the US capital and all its “colour and movement” having transferred to the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School after losing office in 2013.

He said over the last decade he had been “in and out of DC virtually every month or so”.

Referring to Washington’s “corridors of power”, Mr Rudd said he had been surprised by how “deep and broad the positive sentiment towards Australia is across the board”.

Mr Rudd took to the stage after an ebullient introduction from Melbourne via Zoom by billionaire Anthony Pratt.

Mr Pratt described Mr Rudd as “the world’s pre-eminent expert on China” and said the ex-PM’s posting to Washington was “a diplomatic masterstroke”.

“Ambassador, you find a way to get the big things done,” Mr Pratt said

A smiling Mr Rudd joked of the introduction when he took to the stage: “In Australia, we would call that laying it on with a trowel. It’s an overstatement — we’ll send Anthony a cheque later on.”