The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China

Kevin Rudd is a former prime minister and cabinet member in the Australian government. As a long-time China follower, he is fluent in Mandarin and combines extensive academic interest in China’s culture and hands-on contemporary political experience with the emergence of China as a challenger to the U.S. and liberal democracies worldwide. Published in March 2022, Rudd’s book was written prior to the surge of COVID cases in China (resulting in the widespread imposition of China’s zero-tolerance lockdowns), the election of Bongbong Marcos in the Philippines in May 2022 (a critical U.S. ally in the region), the Russian war in Ukraine and the related turmoil in energy markets. Nevertheless, it remains largely relevant today. It is written to inform discussion about Xi Jinping’s China in the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), scheduled to commence October 16, 2022. The congress’s central pillar is Xi’s re-appointment to an unprecedented third term as China’s paramount leader (unmatched since Mao’s rule).Rudd describes 10 concentric rings of focus for Xi’s governing style. This model creates a visual representation of a leader who finds himself and his party in the centre ring with subsequent rings expanding outwards in diminishing priority. This interpretation works well and drives home the centricity of an authoritarian leader’s obsession with self-preservation. Rudd successfully describes Xi’s operationalizing of this fixation on self-preservation, through his quiet collection of all the reins of power, by overtly attacking the Chinese public’s perception of widespread corruption among CCP officials. Rudd convincingly describes Xi’s anti-corruption rectification campaign through the lens of a renewed emphasis on CCP doctrine and the suppression of challengers to his supreme leadership.Rudd makes clear that while dictators need not curry public opinion, they ignore it at their peril. Xi’s success thus far is based on his ability to be the champion of China’s growing middle class and awaken China’s nationalism by a more recent transition to an aggressive Wolf Warrior, in-your-face, foreign policy approach. Observations about the extent of China’s surveillance state are a chilling imitation of Orwellian thought police that is harnessed to identify social trends early and crush any behaviour that Xi’s CCP considers aberrant.