Kevin Rudd’s Xi Jinping verdict offers lessons for Anthony Albanese

Xi Jinping and Kevin Rudd during in 2010. Picture: AP

Kevin Rudd is no dilettante, as his important new book on Xi Jinping makes clear. The problem with the Albanese government’s foreign policy, in contrast, is that it’s entirely dilettantish. It deals with serious issues as any dilettante would, on the basis of looks, convenience and short-term politics.

Thus we have the Prime Minister’s bizarre decision not to attend the inauguration of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, because he’s hosting King Charles. I voted yes to a republic in 1999 but would vote no to any proposal now because it would surely involve making our Constitution worse.

But, while the Crown doesn’t pull at my heart strings, we should treat our monarch with respect. Our relationship with Britain is also hugely important. It’s one of very few countries we can call an ally.

But the King’s visit has no real purpose or point. Albanese has more than once said no relationship is more important to us than Indonesia. For decades now, Australian PMs have attended Indonesian presidential inaugurations. In her first speech as Foreign Minister in London, Penny Wong – slightly weirdly, to be honest – scolded the Brits for their colonial history and made a song and dance about how we are an Indo-Pacific nation.

Just imagine the howls from Labor myth-makers if a conservative PM chose Charles over Jakarta. Labor foreign ministers would deride it for generations.

No doubt the PM’s office rightly calculated that hanging out with the King for a few days is better for the PM than being in Jakarta with Prabowo. But a serious, dedicated PM could easily have done both, even if it meant an overnight flight back from Jakarta, in a luxurious lie-flat bed on the best VIP plane.

Rudd would have done that; so would Tony Abbott. The Indonesians would be impressed by our commitment. Instead it’s just another sign that nothing really matters much. Any Indonesian who is conscious at all of Australia now gets the message: they are our most important relationship, unless something more fun turns up, then they can get in line. Indonesians are touchier about this sort of stuff than you might think, and they have long memories.

There couldn’t be a greater contrast in Rudd’s hard, serious, lifelong approach to China. Rudd has always got China much more right than wrong and he certainly knows more about China, in much greater depth, than anyone else who has ever served in parliament. His is a unique combination of scholar and practitioner.

Rudd has taken many positions on issues I’ve disagreed with, sometimes vigorously, but he’s always been a steady, social democratic, moderate hawk on China, partly because he’s always understood the profoundly ideological nature of the Chinese Communist Party. Now Rudd has written a book of singular importance, On Xi Jinping – how Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World.

It’s distinctive, and therefore intensely valuable, and a classically Rudd enterprise because it involved reading, analysing and putting into Chinese and communist context every significant thing Xi has ever said or written. This is the beginning of wisdom. Listen to what the Chinese say to each other.

A clue to Rudd’s outlook is the book’s dedication, which is to his former teacher at the ANU, Pierre Ryckmans. It is one of the privileges of my life to have known Ryckmans, one of the finest scholars ever to live in Australia. Ryckmans was one of the 20th century’s great anti-communists. He loved China and Chinese culture, and hated the CCP. In a series of excoriating books he mounted a devastating critique of the communists. This was partly humanitarian, but mainly an outraged appraisal of the way they traduced, brutalised, misunderstood and misused Chinese culture.

There should be an award for the book dedication most likely to annoy the CCP. Almost every page of this book contains deep insight into the nature of China and the CCP. It’s not a pretty picture, though this isn’t a rhetorical tome. Rudd understands, deeply, what many of the China apologists in Australia deny or have never grasped: that the CCP is inherently, of its essence, an ideological party devoted to Marxism/Leninism. The Chinese Communists have been telling us this themselves for 100 years, but their Western apologists somehow never hear this bit.

Rudd argues that Xi has intensified, and substantially changed, China’s ideological direction, and that Xi’s ideological commitments dictate and predict Beijing’s behaviour. Rudd says Xi has taken Chinese politics to the Leninist left. The party dominates the state. Human rights and civil society are crushed under conformity to the Communist Party.

On economics, Xi has pushed the Chinese economy to the Marxist left. The party dominates the economy. State-owned enterprises are much more important than private companies, and in any event private companies must be completely subservient to the party. Rudd is clear, and convincing, that this has imposed major economic costs on the Chinese people. But, Rudd rightly argues, Xi places far more importance on ideology than on economic efficiency or even growth.

On foreign policy, Rudd argues Xi has moved China to the nationalist right. He co-opts all elements of Chinese history and nationalism to support the Communist Party. Thus Beijing has become far more militarist and assertive. Rudd is right on this but, while I would never diminish the role of human agency in these matters, nonetheless it seems to me that every communist system that survives always evolves, or degenerates, into some amalgam of theoretically universal communism with very specific local nationalism, and cult-of-personality leadership.

The obvious example is North Korea, but the old east European communist states moved in this direction as well. As Rudd makes clear, Xi has intensely studied the Soviet Union. Like Putin, he regards its dissolution as a historic calamity. In particular, Xi thinks Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Joseph Stalin (and his industrial scale murderous tyranny) led to the unravelling of the Soviet system. So Xi will not denounce Mao, but nor does he denounce the economic reformist period of Deng Xiaoping. He recruits all historical episodes to serve his contemporary purposes.

One fascinating insight is Rudd’s account of Xi’s deep belief that Chinese Communist principles have universal application for all mankind. Rudd doesn’t use this term, but I think this evidence supports the idea of the CCP as a kind of quasi-religion.

Rudd argues, prudently and wisely in my view, that the US and its allies must manage Xi’s China with deterrence, geostrategic competition and patience. In emphasising Xi’s distinctive role, however, I think Rudd could be a little optimistic about the chances for beneficial reform in a post-Xi China. Xi matters as an individual, but it’s also the case that he gives expression to core and enduring CCP identity.

The most ridiculous argument would be to claim that Rudd is out of line writing books such as this while ambassador. He clearly has government permission, and doesn’t contradict Australian policy. There’s not a serious US player on China policy who doesn’t take Rudd into account. That greatly augments Australian soft power.

It’s a pity no one in the Albanese government can remotely hold a candle to Rudd in seriousness of purpose in these matters.