China's Shifting Economy and Politics with Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd was the first western leader who suggested the concept of containing China back in 2011 in his email to Hilary Clinton who was the Secretary of State.

As someone who grew up in US and spent more than 15 years working in China, I find Mr. Rudd’s perspective quite one-sided and superficial. By that, I mean he doesn't really go deep into the core social and ethnic value foundation of the chinese ppl, and the historical course of events that turned China the way it is now. He lacks firsthand expericence living in China interacting with the ppl there to understance how Chinese really thinks. His talk feels more like collection of mainstream propaganda points usually thrown around to vilify China as an emerging superpower threatening western values, while forgeting that its also a developing country with its struggles, often unfairly compared against standards that of developed, less populous countries. Most ppl just cannot fathom how enormous the population of China is and how that plays into everything like the daunting challenge of their government to maintain social stability and fabric with limited resources.

Good, but cherry picked and unbalanced. Sad really. He can do better.

14-minute mark: Rudd claims that the only reason China is maintaining its "zero-covid policy" is due to this need for the party leader to 'never be wrong.' Well, it's either that, or it's the estimates by epidemiologists that millions of people will die if China doesn't maintain this policy. So, you know, China either doesn't want mass deaths, like what has happened in western countries who, regardless of deaths, want to focus on the economy and 'live with the virus.' Or, China simply values human rights, notably here - the right to life - more than they do. Also, consider what would happen if China did let the virus in; who would die? Mostly the elderly, most of whom have state-backed pensions (a huge expense for the government), and which would easily cause an economic boom as their children wouldn't be forced to care for them, and their savings could pass to their children (the Chinese are great at saving money). Simply put, the Chinese government isn't willing to sacrifice lives for the sake of the economy, unlike western countries (see the recent wars and who benefited from them for an obvious example of how western countries balance human lives and economic gain).

Why does this guy keep talking about private sector suppression? There are lots of reforms in China domestic policies to support private sector that he did not mention (for instance the Semiconductor and EV (hello Tesla China, which is a private company hugely supported by Chinese govt) supply chain; he even briefly touched on himself the concepts of self sufficiency and internal circulation, which includes promotion of domestic private industries and the opening up of mainland Chinese capital markets to foreign investors. Of course, embracing free profiteering without regard for social consequences will not be the mainstream policy anymore...American policy makers actually more worried about Chinese govt's domestic favoritism of local industries over foreign industries in coming years which means these reforms could work out well for Chinese domestic economy (otherwise, why would US policymakers even worry about China as a rival?). Another point, quite a number of Chinese companies are hybrids - both state and privately owned entities. So to promote state owned enterprise in a hybrid ownership model, also means private industry promotion. For instance look at SMIC which is sanctioned currently. Furthermore, state owned enterprises' roles are to partner with private companies on business projects or lend to private businesses (it's more akin to US public private partnership model) to foster economic development, so promotion of state owned also benefits privates. Last time I checked, the Chinese central govt never said to favor SOE at the detriment of private enterprise (unless that private enterprise is blatantly violating Chinese regulations like DIDI or Ant Financial). World is not black and white as this politician guy Kevin's spin suggests. What is clear is that China is a strategic rival to US economically. How does US maintain the lead in technology and economy? Healthy competition does not need to lead to war. Finally unification of Taiwan is such an issue bc US is afraid China would control all the chips as a result; not just Xi Jinping ideology; if Taiwan were a fishing island with nothing else, I don't think US gives a crap about its unification or not.

As very often, western writers have made a fortune writing and publishing volumes on the Chinese economy using western yardsticks. Their predictions have often failed but they continue on the same journey however.

Deng Xioping's guidance for the country has always been to "Let some get rich first then enable the country to prosper together". Xi merely signaled that the country is embarking on the second part of Deng's guidance. Their is no turning on its head, Deng's strategy for the nation, but a faithful continuation of that strategy. With regards to Foreign Policy, it merely evolved from Deng's time, as during Deng's time, no foreign nation was concerned about China's rise and none were determined to thwart its continuing development. That is evidently not the case today. China merely developed economically and sought to ensure its continual development. It's evident that certain nations (we all know which ones) are dead set on not letting China to continue to develop economically. Thus a more active and dynamic foreign policy is called for to remind all nations that traded with China that the global growth for the past 40 years were due precisely to the productivity growth of China; that continuing prosperity for the world cannot do without the productivity of China. When China's productivity is hampered, disrupted, or sabotaged, there is not a nation in the world today that is able to pick up the global productivity at the scale and speed as China did; besides, there is not a chance in hell that China will allow its economic interests to be sabotaged. With regards to the idea that "the leader can never be wrong," the fallacy of this claim was self-contradicted by Rudd's very first statement that the CPC recognized that Chairman Mao was 30% wrong and 70% right. So, as a party, they recognize that the leaders can be wrong from time to time, but will never let that be the cause for diminishing the honor and dignity of the position. The honor and dignity afforded to the position is independent of the individual holding that position in so far as the person allowed to hold the position continues to honor it him/herself.

Enlightened. Please direct me to his assessment of Australian political and economic landscapes

I think the phd that will be obtained is not necessary right ...because this is an interpretation based on kevin argument based on data/ history , viewed/ judged by westerner .......i think better view/ judged by chinese ,because chinese knows what will be done...in such away that phd obtained should be obtained from chinese university rather than western uni

I enjoyed listening to Dr. Rudd. Nice sense of humour:

This has given me a new respect for Kevin Rudd, I always liked him. He didn't get much appreciation in Australia I thought.

The student basically told him he is wrong lol 😂

Kevin is now the chairman of AS, and his political views are more and more in line with Western political correctness, losing his previous objectivity and independence

There is an argument against competition for countries which has chosen different paths. A bank can compete with another bank as winner is naturally the profitable one. But a bank cannot compete with a hospital because a hospital can be excellent even when it just breaks even financially but provide the best care for the cost. Is Citibank winning against Huawei a meaningful statement ? To think in terms of competition between America and China it must be sectorial. It cannot be as a whole. But in geopolitics, competition is really about power diplomacy and military. In diplomacy, we can see China running circles around the US outside the West (BRI, SCO, BRIC ...), and military advances in China has astonished many even without fighting a war since 1978.

Why were the West's recent moves (away from "globalism") to (economically and otherwise) isolate China, Russia and others not mentioned? Also, it will take time to digest the overblown RE sector.

The Rt Honourable Mr Rudd has to sell to a Western audience. I used to listen to what he had to say. But I recently detected a slight lean towards his audience's preferred line of attack. He really has no choice. Business is business. I now find less and less need to follow his line of thought. He did live in China in the eighties of the last century.

Giving corporations free rein in an economy and having a private bank in charge of a countries finances hasn't worked out too well for the USA with crumbling infrastructure whose people except for a small corporate elite are descending into poverty? “preventing capital from expanding in a disorderly fashion,”: "The Chinese state guides capital and private entities towards what it believes are national strategic priorities, rather than allowing them to simply focus on generating greater revenue." Jack Ma of Alipay & Ant thought he could prioritize profit, he was told this is not the Chinese way? Perhaps the US Government needs to outsource re-education of US corporate bosses to China and divert the obscene profits they make plus most of the overblown US defense budget to lifting Americans out of poverty? President Xi Jinping was sent to work on a farm in the country in his youth to rid him of his theoretical political delusions.

Do these people really fantasize about interfering in other countries' internal affairs every day

Learning a language is only good for communication, but if perspective is not align for Chinese Culture then he just guessing his way around rather than a valid proposition about China.

Interesting talk, thank you. No mention of India in your calculus though....