AUKUS needed to counter Xi Jinping’s aggression: Condoleezza Rice

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warns that authoritarian leaders like Xi Jinping are prone to ‘big mistakes’.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pictured in 2008.​

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has “outsized ambitions’’ but will have been unnerved by the strengthening of Australia’s ties in the region, with the Quad alliance and the AUKUS submarine deal.

In a forthright discussion on Friday morning at a London conservative think tank with the Policy Exchange chairman and Australia’s longest serving foreign minister Alexander Downer, Ms Rice said AUKUS was a natural coming together of Australia, the US and UK to counter China’s aggression.

A billboard showing Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen as a bus carrying journalists arrives at the China Manned Space Agency before a pre-launch press conference overnight (AEST). Picture: Getty Images

She added that while Mr Xi wanted to be one China’s great leaders “right there after Mao,” authoritarian leaders were prone to “big mistakes” because there was no one alongside them to counter bad decisions.

“Sometimes authoritarians make really bad policy,” she said. “And when there‘s only one person in Xi Jinping, who really matters, they have a single point of failure, and they make big mistakes”.

Ms Rice, who served under then US President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009, pointed out the way China dealt with Australia in recent times would prove to be a bad mistake. “It had to cause a backlash and I don’t really know what they thought they were doing,” she said.

She pointed to Beijing’s aggression on the border with India as another misstep. “Who decides to stir up trouble on the Sino-Indian border that‘s been quiet for 40 years?” she said. “But the Chinese decided to do that. And you can go on and on and on.”

Ms Rice warned China might “double down’’ on its strategy of aggressive nationalism, but said the west was getting into a better position to resist.

She said China had been “unnerved” by the alliances in the region: the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States as well as the strengthening of the Australia, UK and US co-operation.

“I welcome the AUKUS because, first of all it‘s it’s a terrific grouping of three. Now I love the idea of the Quad, I think that the Chinese don’t particularly: they were actually unnerved by the notion of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. I think they will be equally unnerved by Australia, Great Britain and the United States, because you bring real weight, militarily, technologically in terms of intelligence and the UK is really quite a powerhouse in those areas, whether it’s military, technology or intelligence.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) speaks during a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on September 22. Picture: Getty Image

“And so, those assets are now brought into the Indo-Pacific, with an alliance and it‘s also of course, an alliance of values, not just of interest. I think it has the potential to really shape the Indo-Pacific, along with Japan and Korea and India in ways that make it difficult for China to reach some of its ambitions. I’m hoping that it really doesn’t just find footing, but that it reaches its full potential, which I think is significant.”

Mr Downer said AUKUS showed that Great Britain decided it was going to play a more global role.

“But there‘s another way of looking at this and that is that Chinese foreign policy has been so unsuccessful, that it has led these traditional allies to rally together in ways that we haven’t seen for quite some time,’’ he said.

Ms Rice said about Mr Xi: “I think that this is a leader who has outsizes ambitions, personally, to the point that he has also torn up the script about collective leadership, torn up the script about term limits, which used to be two terms and an age limit. Somebody who, at home, now has all children thinking the thoughts of Xi Jinping and who seems to want to see himself in the Pantheon as one of the great Chinese leaders right there after (Chairman) Mao. And if that is the case, then we‘re also dealing with not just national ambitions but leadership ambitions that I think could be actually quite, quite complicated.’’

Both Ms Rice and Mr Downer agreed that China would take a nuanced approach to Taiwan, by destabilising the country through cyber warfare and social media discord.

Ms Rice said there was currently enough ambiguity in the minds of the Chinese about the US response that she wouldn’t expect an amphibious landing against Taiwan.

She said: “For one thing we have trained over the last 20 years or so, the Taiwanese Armed Forces, who can‘t defeat the Chinese but they can exact a price. And so to the degree that we keep arming them and keep training them, I think we’re contributing to the deterrent factor.’’

But she predicted China would mirror Putin’s strategy in Eastern Ukraine by using paramilitary forces and acts of sabotage like cutting underwater cables and destabilising the Taiwanese government by strengthening pro-Beijing forces within the country.

“There was a fistfight in the Taiwanese parliament a few weeks ago and wondered to myself did that really happen between the people of Taiwan or was that something that was provoked from the outside?’’ she said.