THE AVOIDABLE WAR: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China.

• Date: 01 September 2022
• Author: Hoadley, Stephen
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Author: Hoadley, Stephen

THE AVOIDABLE WAR: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China

Author: Kevin Rudd

Published by: Hachett Australia, Sydney, 2022, 421pp, $40.

This is a book defined as much by the eminence of its author as by the lucidity of its content. In this reviewer's opinion, Kevin Rudd is the best qualified living analyst of China in the Western world.

Who is Kevin Rudd? His qualifications include the following:

* graduate student at the Australian National University, Taiwan Normal University, Oxford University and Harvard University's Kennedy Center;

* learned Mandarin and completed an honours thesis on Xi Jinping Thought;

* policy officer in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade;

* minister of foreign affairs of Australia;

* prime minister of Australia (twice);

* chief executive officer of the Asia Society;

* president of Asia Society Policy Institute;

* praised by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Admiral James Stavridis and Harvard professors Joseph Nye and Graham Allison.

Since 1986 Rudd has met or spoken (in Mandarin) with Xi Jinping over a dozen times as each man moved up his career ladder to the top. Rudd found Xi, now president of China, to be 'an impressive, knowledgeable, engaging interlocutor' who 'speaks his mind directly and forcefully'.

This is not to say that Rudd and Xi agree on each other's foreign policy outlook. Rudd is clear in his book that the Chinese...