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Kevin Rudd on How To Avoid a US – China War through Managed Strategic Competition

In this YouTube Video published by the Asia Society on March 23, 2022, Kevin Rudd explained how a war between the US and China can be avoided in an interview with Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. This video is an hour and 12 minutes long but Kevin’s prescription for war avoidance is found from 13:00 through 22:45.

This talk was timed with the launching of his new book.

The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China by [Kevin Rudd]

Kevin framed his discussion by quoting “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”,  a book by Christopher Clark et al.  World War I (the war to end all wars) started because the circumstances were not managed (sleepwalked) as opposed to the post WWII, US-USSR conflicts which peaked in 1962 with the Cuban crisis, and ended when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. The latter conflict was managed strategically and certain red lines were not crossed and the use of nuclear weapons was not in question.

Kevin therefore postulates that in spite of stiff competition between the number one and number two superpowers on many arenas: economic, military, technological, and others, a war can be avoided if the competition is managed strategically.

  1. Established red lines that must not be crossed, e.g. Taiwan, South and East China Seas, Cyber and Space wars, etc.
  2. Within the managed strategic competition arena, all gloves are off and may the better economic system win.
  3. Where cooperative efforts make sense, such as climate changes, pandemic, global financial security, the two counties should work with each other because we live on the same planet.
  4. Kevin suggests that top Foreign Affairs officials from both sides act as referees to keep the competition within bounds and not get out of control.

That is the gist of Kevin’s proposal.

Furthermore, Kevin challenges anyone to come up with a better alternative.

As a Chinese American, I would prefer a win-win solution as opposed to a zero sum game.

Is that too much to hope for?

Joel