Kevin Rudd’s appointment as ambassador to Washington is likely to go one of two ways: brilliantly or disastrously.
Australia’s precocious former prime minister is undoubtedly a foreign policy expert of the first rank, courtesy both of his experience at the highest levels of government and his longstanding, genuine interest in international affairs.
Testament to his industry and intellect, Oxford University awarded Rudd, the most self-consciously intellectual prime minster we’ve ever had, a doctorate in philosophy for his 420-page treatise on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s world view.
No Australian commands the combination of diplomatic experience, knowledge of China, and US connections as Kevin Rudd, 65, who’s lived in New York City for years as head of the highly regarded Asia Society.
A political hero of the global left, and an early advocate for “one of the greatest moral, economic and environmental challenges of our age”, climate change, he’ll be warmly received in the upper echelons of the Biden administration.
And his sway in the Labor Party back home, despite earlier disagreements, remains deep: Andrew Charlton, Labor MP for Parramatta and his former economic adviser, told The Australian Rudd’s was an “inspired choice, enlisting an outstanding foreign policy intellectual and practitioner to one of Australia’s most important relationship.”
But it’s an appointment not without risk for his good friend Anthony Albanese.
Rudd has a short fuse and famously big mouth, in an age where even the mild-mannered Kim Darroch, former British ambassador to the US during the Trump administration, was caught out in 2019 for some frank assessments, setting fire to Trump’s relationship with London.
Who can forget Rudd’s quip about the “rat f..ker” Chinese in 2019, “who were trying to rat f..k us”, which however accurate, were diplomatically unhelpful.
But more than that, Rudd has unleashed on former president Donald Trump repeatedly in public, calling him a “a traitor to the West”, guilty of “rancid treachery” as early as February this year, comments that wouldn’t go unnoticed in a future Republican administration.
Australia must now count on Trump’s destruction as a political force in US politics, if it’s to bring the AUKUS security pact, guarantor of our future security, to fruition.
Rudd even took a veiled swipe at rising Republican star Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, questioning his courage for failing to mention Ukraine in a speech at conservative political conference, who is he odds on favourite to win the GOP nomination in 2024.
Naturally, no-one publicly in Washington will say a bad word about an incoming ambassador – there’s no upside. But any missteps could bring out the knives.
David Shambaugh, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University in 2016 told me Australia’s reputation had been “enhanced” when then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull chose not to support Rudd’s candidacy for UN Secretary General.
“Rudd’s longstanding, widely known and well-earned reputation for poor interpersonal skills, alienating public relations, inept bureaucratic skills, enormous ego and solicitousness of the Chinese government are all reasons he should not have been nominated,” he said then.
Let’s hope Rudd’s tenure in Washington doesn’t follow the same trajectory as his prime ministership – a brilliant first couple of years followed by a spectacular implosion.
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