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Kevin Rudd: Nobody wanted Putin at the G-20 anyway
Australia’s former PM says nobody at the G-20 – neither the host, Indonesia, nor Russia’s friends, China and India – wanted President Vladimir Putin to attend the summit.
By bowing out, Putin can’t detract from the main focus, which Rudd – president of the Asia Society – says is finding a way to stabilize the US-China relationship.
When Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping meet in Bali on Monday before the summit, Rudd says to watch for how the discussion formulates “guard rails” to stabilizing relations, which have been in “free fall” for three years.
Speaking with Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer, he and Rudd agree that the US-China relationship is the most important strategic global issue in the long term.
Washington and Beijing have “lots of reasons to slow the deterioration or stabilize” relations and get away from what’s looking like a “train wreck,” Bremmer says. But in the short term, Bremmer points to the fact that Putin doesn’t have the same incentives to de-escalate – and thus poses the most immediate threat.
Kevin Rudd: Xi thinks Putin is a "dummy"
Australia's former PM believes that the once-blossoming bromance between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin has turned toxic. Why? You guessed it: Russia's war in Ukraine.
China's leader thinks Putin is a "dummy" for launching a "halfcocked" invasion that neither the Russian military could pull off nor the Russian economy afford, Rudd — also president and CEO of the Asia Society — says during a conversation with Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer at the Asia Society's HQ in New York.
While Xi won't break ranks in public, Rudd adds that in private, he’s "crab-walking away from 100% endorsement" of Russia, as we saw at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan.
As for whether China can deter Russia from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Rudd says Xi has been clear: don't do it, Vladimir.
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- Kevin Rudd: Nobody wanted Putin at the G-20 anyway - GZERO Media ›
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How social media harms democracy
Yes, foreign powers have tried to meddle in US elections. But for Ian Bremmer, external disinformation efforts pale in comparison to the internal damage Americans can do.
What's more, under its new ownership Twitter is so far unleashing more anger, hatred, and violence on social media, Bremmer says during a conversation with former Australian PM and Asia Society President and CEO Kevin Rudd at the Asia Society's headquarters in New York.
But it's not just a Twitter problem. For Bremmer, social media's business model allows A/B testing to be done on American society on the basis of what's more addictive — not what's better. And that, obviously, is bad for democracy.
American disunity and social media platforms that have become more influential than ever before, he adds, are a far greater danger to US democracy than China or Russia.
Kevin Rudd: COVID has made Xi Jinping zero-risk
Australia's former PM and current CEO of the Asia Society knows China quite well. He's fluent in Mandarin, and — for a foreigner — has a pretty good idea of what's cooking in Chinese politics.
That's why Kevin Rudd believes China's zero-COVID strategy will (probably) remain in place all of next year.
The Chinese, he tells Ian Bremmer, "had the internal shock of their life" during the early stages of the outbreak. And rumblings over Xi Jinping's initial response have created a "deep pathology" in his mind about taking any risks at all with the virus.
Rudd sees no clear COVID exit strategy for China, or Xi. That'll have serious implications for global trade.
Also, China now wants to join the revamped TPP regional trade deal — without changing its terms. That, he explains, is "basically pulling the rug from under the normal levels of opposition" from countries like Australia or Japan.
Finally, Rudd details why Beijing is more worried than it wants to admit about diplomatic pushback against China’s territorial overreach in Asia with things like the Quad.
Watch his full interview and insights from other participants on Day 3 of our parent company Eurasia Group's 2021 GZERO Summit.
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Can anyone lead the world on climate right now? Nope, says Kevin Rudd
For Kevin Rudd, former Australian PM and now CEO of the Asia Society, the science on climate change is pretty much done, so the only unresolved issues are tech and — more importantly — lack of political leadership. He can't think of a single national political leader who can fill the role, and says the only way to get political action on climate is to mobilize public opinion.
Rudd joined for the first of a two-part Sustainability Leaders Summit livestream conversation sponsored by Suntory. Watch here and register here to watch part two Friday 10/22 at 8 am ET.
Supporters of Peru's presidential candidate Verónica Mendoza hold a giant national flag during a campaign closing rally in Lima.
What We’re Watching: Andean elections, AstraZeneca’s hell week, former Aussie PM is designated driver
Two big Andean elections: This Sunday, Ecuadorians go to the polls for the second time this year in a close presidential runoff, while Peruvians will vote in the first round of their own presidential election. In Ecuador, the matchup is between the leftwing-populist frontrunner Andrés Arauz, who has pledged to blow up the country's IMF agreements and boost national oil production, and Guillermo Lasso, a pro-business candidate who is seen as the choice of continuity with the current market-friendly government. Voter abstention is likely to be high, and the final result could very well be close and contested in a polarized country that was struggling with massive social unrest even before the pandemic struck. Meanwhile in Peru — which recently went through three presidents in the space of a week — the candidate field is hugely fragmented. Those with a decent shot to make it to the second round include "change" candidates like the leftist former lawmakers Yohny Lescano and Verónica Mendoza, as well as the prominent neoliberal economist Hernando De Soto, who has recently risen in the polls. Former soccer star George Forsyth is also in the mix, as is Keiko Fujimori, daughter of authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori. Both of this Sunday's elections will serve as a kind of bellwether for the political mood in a region that has been devastated by the public health and economic impact of the pandemic.
AstraZeneca under pressure: COVID jab manufacturer AstraZeneca has had a hell week. First, a top EU health official issued a confusing statement linking AstraZeneca's jab to blood clots, which has led some countries to limit its use on people older than 60 and younger than 30. And now the African Union is suspending further AstraZeneca purchases until the Serum Institute of India can ensure supplies for the global COVAX facility. The latter is a big blow to a lot African nations, since the AU was betting on AstraZeneca to inoculate the entire continent because its vaccine is cheap and doesn't need cold storage. On the other hand, it's also a vindication of early skeptic South Africa, which stopped using AstraZeneca even before the blood clots issue surfaced because it was not effective enough against the variant of the virus prevalent there. The broader problem is that unless the safety, supply and efficacy concerns are resolved soon, AstraZeneca's jab will lose the momentum it once had to end the pandemic throughout the developing world.
A famous chauffeur: Four inebriated Aussies stumble out of a bar in Melbourne to discover a driving rain. Having called Uber, they spot an idling car. They pile in and ask the driver to take them to Hastings street. About halfway home, one of the boys notices that their driver is Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister and current Eurasia Group senior adviser. Rudd had just dropped his daughter off at a restaurant when his surprise passengers arrived, and he agreed to take them home because Kevin is a fair dinkum gent.
GZERO Summit: Geopolitics in a post-pandemic world
What major geopolitical trends are in store for 2021, when a new US president takes over and will face not only the mammoth task of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic but also the fallout from the G-zero world that the Trump presidency accelerated? Who will most benefit and suffer from a leaderless global landscape?
It may be a bit too soon to see clear winners and losers, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said during the panel discussion on post-COVID geopolitics at the 2020 GZERO Summit in Japan.
The US, he explained, stands to win by exercising its hard power on tech, banks and vaccine production, but so far it's been a loser on political division and overall management of the pandemic under Trump. China, for its part, has its economy growing again but is now mistrusted a lot more by the world.
In Asia, it's time to pay close attention to Japan, a reliable US ally and traditional China rival that is undergoing a political transition after the departure of Shinzo Abe as prime minister. Under new PM Yoshihide Suga, Japan will be closely monitoring the incoming Biden administration's initial moves on rebuilding the liberal international order that Trump shunned, noted Taro Kong, Japan's minister in charge of administrative reform.
The US-Japan alliance remains strong, he said, but the US has not been a reliable partner for the past four years, and a single alliance is not enough to ensure Asia's security amid an increasingly aggressive China.
For Jane Harman, head of the US-based Wilson Center think tank, the problem is that Biden's foreign policy ambitions may be hobbled by a Republican-controlled Senate if the Democrats don't win both races in Georgia's runoff election in early January. Biden, she said, can govern by executive order but the scope of what he can accomplish beyond that could be severely hampered without a Senate majority.
Moreover, she anticipated that Trump will continue to wield significant influence over the Republican Party, and probably prevent it from supporting Biden even if what he wants to do serves US foreign policy interests.
Indeed, the persistence of Trumpism will be a key constraint to more US globalism, said Bremmer, who added that Americans are now less supportive now of the US being the global policeman. With that in mind and with COVID recovery as Biden's top priority, the new president's success or failure may ultimately depend on whether the US is able to vaccinate its citizens fast enough to fend off possible vaccine competition from China in other parts of the world.
For Bremmer, Biden understands that the US must pivot again to Asia and that China is a clear rival. In that regard, his China policy won't be that different to Trump's except when it comes to climate change, where Biden thinks the US can both cooperate with China but also compete on green technology.
Right now, and despite US political divisions, the ball is in America's court on what it wants to do in Asia and with China, said Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister and current president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. One positive development is that Biden will probably not mess with Taiwan, an immensely sensitive issue that Trump would often use to provoke Beijing's ire.
Beyond Taiwan and the South China Sea, Rudd commented that China is concerned about Biden because he will probably reverse four Trump trends that China was quite pleased with on democracy, allies, trade, and multilateralism. At the end of the day, China understands power, and knows that the US was less powerful with a president who stood up to China but on his own, without the allies that together have the combined power to really challenge China's regional superpower status.
Watch the above video to learn more insights from our panelists.
New Zealand PM Goes to Beijing: China in 60 Seconds
New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern is attempting to improve relations with Beijing during a whirlwind trip to China.
It's China in 60 Seconds with Kevin Rudd!