Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States
I think for anyone in their working life, if you aspire to positions of leadership, the most important thing to do is to have a a moral compass of one form or another, anchored in a philosophical or a theological worldview.
Summary
This week on Leadership Matters, Alan is joined by Ambassador Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Ambassador to the United States and the former Prime Minister of Australia. Throughout their conversation, Alan and Ambassador Rudd discuss his early life and influences, his career journey through the public and private sectors, his time serving in the Australian government, his interest in China and the many lessons in leadership he’s learned along the way.
Mentions & Resources
The Avoidable War The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China
On Xi Jinping: How Xi's Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World
Not for the Faint-hearted: A Personal Reflection on Life, Politics and Purpose
Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Guest Bio
HE the Hon Dr Kevin Rudd AC is Australia’s Ambassador to the United States of America, taking up his posting in Washington in March 2023.
Ambassador Rudd served as Australia’s twenty-sixth Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Minister for Foreign Affairs, before a second term as Prime Minister in 2013. He was Member for Griffith in the Australian Parliament from 1998 to 2013.
Since leaving government, Ambassador Rudd has resided in the United States where he is recognised as a leading analyst of China. In 2015, he became inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. In 2020, he was appointed President and CEO of the Asia Society globally and, in 2022, he founded the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.In 2019, Ambassador Rudd was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to Indigenous reconciliation, innovative economic initiatives, and major policy reform, and through senior advisory roles with international organisations. Ambassador Rudd holds honorary positions at the Atlantic Council and Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC; the Asia Society, Schwartzman Scholars and Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New York; the Paulson Institute in Chicago; the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris, France; the Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation in Hamburg, Germany; and Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in Canberra. He is founder and co-chair of an Australian charity, the National Apology Foundation, and a trustee of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City.
Ambassador Rudd started his diplomatic career in 1981 with postings to Beijing and Stockholm. In 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Hon Wayne Goss and served him as Premier of Queensland. He was Director-General of the Cabinet Office in Queensland from 1991 to 1995, and Senior China Consultant for KPMG from 1996 to 1998.
Ambassador Rudd graduated with Honours in Asian Studies from the Australian National University and received his PhD from Oxford University in 2022. He also studied at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.
Ambassador Rudd is accompanied on his posting by his wife, Thérèse Rein.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. Today I'm joined by a statesman who's not only led on the global stage, but has also spent a lifetime bridging cultures, shaping policy and championing diplomacy, truly like no other. Former Prime Minister of Australia, Ambassador Kevin Rudd is Australia's ambassador to the United States.
Kevin previously served as Australia's 26th Prime Minister, and is one of the foremost experts on China, Asia and international relations. From leading Australia through the global financial crisis to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and more, Kevin Rudd has been at the helm of some of the most critical international decisions of our time. Beyond politics, he's been a thought leader, whether at Harvard's Belfer Center, as President of the Asia Society, or through his latest book, The Avoidable War, where he explores the future of US-China relations and the pressing challenges of our era.
He has been at the forefront of our thinking and our actions. I'm excited to have Kevin Rudd on the show today to discuss his upbringing, early influences, his inspiring career journey, his guiding principles, the book he published recently and to learn the many lessons in leadership that he would like us to know that he has actually dealt with along the way.
Kevin, you're a friend of mine, so I want to call you Kevin. Welcome to leadership matters. It's an honor to have you on the show with us.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well thanks very much, Alan. I'd be disappointed if you call me anything other than Kevin. In political life, you get called a lot of things. So Kevin will do just fine.
Alan Fleischmann
Let's begin with your early life on your family's farm in Queensland, which I know I’m pronouncing wrong. What was life like around the house and the farm growing up with your parents and your three siblings?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, my father was what you would describe here in the United States as a sharecropper, a share farmer, we would call them. I grew up on a farm with dairy cattle and beef cattle in rural Queensland. And rural Queensland is not dissimilar to probably a rural Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, that sort of place. But as a kid growing up, we didn't have a lot. It was pretty idyllic. 500 acres to roll around a horse, a local country school for teachers. You knew everybody in town, a town called Eumundi with 200 people in it, and it was a pretty good environment to be educated and to grow up. I learned and I have no regrets about my elementary or country high school education.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. Your siblings also your parents, what did they do as well?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, I'm old enough to have had a father who was an active serviceman and a volunteer in the Second World War. So he served in European theater, I should say the Middle Eastern theater. He was in Palestine, and then came back to Australia after Japan entered the war, and then fought in Southeast Asia. Then after the war when he was demobbed, he became a farmer and moved to the part of the world where he met my mother, in South East Queensland.
My mother was also the daughter of a farmer and also the daughter of a dairy farmer. She had trained, however, as a nurse during the war. Part of her job in Brisbane in those days, which was MacArthur's field headquarters, after he evacuated the Philippines, was to nurse Australian diggers and American GIs back to health. After the war, she resumed her nursing career, and after my father died in an accident when I was about 11 years old, she kind of raised us as a single mother.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow. And then your siblings, a little bit about them.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I'm the youngest of four. My oldest brother was an Army regular, fought in Vietnam with American GIs. My sister was a teacher and a nurse, and has only recently retired. And my middle brother was a teacher as well, and now he works as a business consultant. I'm the only black sheep in the family. I went into politics.
Alan Fleischmann
And I know from being in your home and your library and having conversations about your father while you were young, your father had a big impact on your life, and obviously your mother devoted her life as you just described, as a nurse, but also as a single mother. Are there certain principles of your dad, for example, and your mom that kind of keep you going every day that you don't you don't always have the easiest days in life, so I imagine their voices are heard?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think for anyone in their working life, if you aspire to positions of leadership, the most important thing to do is to have a moral compass of one form or another, anchored in a philosophical or a theological worldview. So that when the going gets tough in all of our lives, it gets really tough from time to time, you don't just get thrown against a brick wall and crumble into 1000 pieces, but you're able to pick yourself up and to go on to the next challenge. I think that's what I largely inherited from my mother. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and so therefore you grow up with a certain worldview, and that, I think, has been pretty important for me.
The second was her natural sense of curiosity about the world. Neither of my parents had really been to high school, given when they grew up, let alone to college or to university. But my mother also exhibited a great interest in the world, so she was a child of Reader's Digest. I then became the grandchild of Readers Digest. And so therefore the window on the world was what we learned from that, and National Geographic and stuff like that. So there are two things, I think: curiosity about the world from my mum, but also a broader view of how we fit into the world and our moral responsibilities to our fellow human beings from her as well.
Alan Fleischmann
So really, one can see how you might have not then decided to go into a career in nursing or agriculture, but you actually did take their their worldview and their, you know, frankly, their values that led you into public life.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, also my father probably had a different influence on me. He was a farmer, and two things I remember about my discussions with him as a kid before he was killed in an accident, one was how horrible war was. Nothing to be glorified about the business of killing. Second was he was always enthusiastic about agricultural life. So one day, I remember sitting on a horse with him as he asked me if I'd made up my mind about what career I wanted to pursue, and that there was a fork in the road. I'd have to make a choice sooner or later. I had no idea what he was talking about. I was 10 years old. He said, “Well, the big choice for you, Kev, for the future, is it going to be beef, or is it going to be dairy?” And so that's when I decided that pursuing a latent interest in China was probably a better life option for me, a long way from a career in Australian animal husbandry.
Alan Fleischmann
It was actually an inspiring conversation, maybe with a different outcome than your father anticipated.
Nonetheless, you went on to the National University, the Australian National University in Canberra, and specialized in Chinese history and language. What drew you to China? I mean, it's amazing when you consider that you already knew then what has become known as an expertise that you have today.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think I put that back to my mother. As a kid, she'd feed me books I mentioned before, Readers Digest in the National Geographic, but any other book she could lay her hands on. She gave me a book once on the history of architecture, and I remember being captivated by the last couple of pages of the book, which is on classical Chinese architecture with these pictures of classical Chinese temples, this sort of captured my mind as being so radically different, I'd like to learn more about it. Then come the early 70s, when China entered the United Nations, she walked into my room one day, and through the newspaper on the bed, the headline which said “China enters the UN” and she just said to me, this will change the world, and it will change your future too. That's all she said, and left me with the newspaper article to read.
So these things swirled around in the mind of a kid until I finished high school and decided I didn't necessarily want to go off to university to become a lawyer. I wanted to do something with slightly broader interests in mind, so I took a gap year, hitchhiked around Australia, which you could do safely in those days, had probably a half a dozen different jobs in one year, from being a barman to being shopping center entertainment and other such jobs. I was also a hospital orderly or wardsman. And before I decided I really wanted to pursue my China interest, and so I enrolled at the Australian National University to study classical Chinese, modern Chinese and Chinese history for five years. That's what I did.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. Are there things that as a student stand out to you today? Are the things that were incredibly insightful as a student that actually still stand the, you know, the test of time?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think that's along these lines. I was never politically active as a student at University, like I never joined a young Labor Party or anything like that. I could have, I mean, I had a broad interest in politics, but I always thought student politics was a bit silly. Instead, during my university years, I was quite inspired by some of my lecturers, in particular, a profound academic whose name was Pierre Rickmans, or his pen name was Simone Leis, who's French/Australian sinologist, a master of Chinese history and as Chinese esthetics, Chinese literature and who wrote beautiful Chinese, as well as a foreigner.
What impression did he leave on me? Just this ability to unlock a kid's mind in terms of the wonders of the Chinese classical tradition. But secondly, more importantly, as a life principle, Alan, it was this mastering any subject doesn't come easy. You've actually got to work hard, like really hard, to become competent. And if you started to learn Chinese at the tender age of 18, and you're not a native speaker, let me tell you, it's really hard, and so discovering that the only way I could get on top of it and become like him was to work and to work and to work. So the life principle from that is, unless you are Mozart or Einstein, where genius comes to you naturally, and I never have been, you've just gotta work in order to master your field. That, for me, has always remained a life principle.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. So you did not get involved in politics in college at all?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Not at all. I mean, I read the newspapers, I followed political debates, but I thought the sort of stuff they were doing on campus was just borderline stupid, whether it was on the left or on the right, it just struck me as borderline stupid, a waste of time.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And was there any thought of you going to law or to study other things as you were going along?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, when I finished my degree in Chinese language and history, I was about to go and do law as a second degree. But to my great surprise, having applied to the Australian foreign service and not knowing a single soul but just doing the exam and writing out the written application, I was accepted in the Foreign Service as a career diplomat, professional diplomat. And that was the end of my aspirations to become a lawyer and with Chinese language, one day go to Hong Kong and and make a great pile of money. That sort of went out the window. I just ended up as a professional sinologist within the Foreign Service.
Alan Fleischmann
And you ended up doing the Foreign Service. Were there any figures that kind of encourage you to go the diplomatic route? Are there certain mentors along college that stand out today, and any mentors when you actually joined the Foreign Service that you recall?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, more after I joined. I mean, as I joined as one of the foreign service better Chinese language speakers, they then sent me on my first posting to Stockholm, which doesn't have a lot to do with China. In fact, zero. But along the way, I got to know a guy as my first section here who rose to become the secretary of our department. That is equivalent of Deputy Secretary of State, professional guy running the entire service underneath the foreign minister. I'd end up as Foreign Minister myself, but I didn't know that those days after I went into politics, but what he taught me was to be an effective diplomat, you really had to be systematic. And he taught me just about thoroughness, about being thorough in your context, thorough in your information, thorough in your reporting, and he was good. His name was Dennis Richardson.
He ended up, as I said, as Secretary the Department of Foreign Affairs. In fact, I pointed him to that position when I was Prime Minister. He was my boss. He taught me how to photocopy. And then another guy who didn't rise all that far in the Foreign Service was a thoroughly decent human being by the name of David Ambrose. He was a classicist, Latin, Greek and the rest. He actually taught me how to write. That is, to write effectively. And when you learn, when you're taught how to write effectively as a young diplomat, it helps enormously. And I think that's a skill that I acquired from him.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that a process of him just working with you, or do you send things back that you drafted?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, he would send things but copious red lines through it. Yeah, and never rude, but just saying, I don't think this adds up logically, and this paragraph is not stated clearly in terms of the argument and the evidence. And by the way, don't split your infinitives. So he was actually quite influential on the way in which I learned to write.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. So he was a huge influencer in your life. And then you joined the party, though, right? You did join the Labor Party around the time that you – what made you do that?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, it's funny. I think once you finish university, and I, by that stage, I was the tender age of probably 22 maybe 22-23, and having reflected on life mission and purpose for my university years, I ended up doing two or three things in one year. One was to join the Foreign Service, as we've just discussed. The second was to join the Labor Party, because I did have an innate interest in political life, and because I had a poor background as a kid growing up, and I knew what it was like to feel vulnerable quickly after my father died, when we were very vulnerable, that was decision number two. But as a matter of as it were, political and philosophical commitment, rather than an intention to pursue a political career at that stage. And the third was, I got married, and so to Therese, and 43 years later, I'm fortunate enough to still have her as my wife.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. How did you two meet?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
First week of university, first year. So we were staying in the same residential college at the Australian National University, and we were completely different. She's from Adelaide in South Australia, from Queensland. It's kind of like the difference from coming from Massachusetts and Arkansas, does that make sense? And she was from a professional family. I'm from a farming family. And, you know, obviously it was my, you know, animal magnetism, anything else.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you marry while you were in university? Or did you get married right after?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
After I joined the Foreign Service at the end of my first year on the day before we left on our first diplomatic posting together in Sweden.
Alan Fleischmann
Nice. And how did you, how are you accepting? I guess in her professional family, I'll say it that way. Well,
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think they were always a bit skeptical of me, because I was probably seen as a bit of a hillbilly, but they grudgingly and increasingly accepted my existence and the rest is history.
Alan Fleischmann
I love it. So your early, as you mentioned, your early diplomatic career took you to Stocholm and then Beijing. What were your assignments in both of cities, and how did those experience shape your understanding of International Affairs?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I was actually pleased to step outside of the China sphere for a while, because I'd not really made any serious study of the Occident, only the Orient. So it was useful for me to begin to wrap my head around Europe, and to wrap my head in particular about Northern Europe, and these were the last days of the Soviet Union. So understanding the ingredients of Soviet decline and demise was fascinating from the lens of Scandinavia and Stockholm in particular.
One of the things I remember was, in those days, if you're a young third secretary in a small diplomatic mission, you get to do a vast range of things. And so I ran things like Australian film festivals. I became the reporting officer for Norway, because we didn't have a resident embassy in Oslo, wrote extensive research papers on the future of Norwegian natural gas as a natural alternative to the to the supply of Soviet gas to Western Europe, something which became relevant about 40 years later. So you got to do a vast number of things.
And even at the tender age of 24-25, for an Australian post abroad, it gives you some management experience as well. So that was fun. But if I was to answer the honest question, did anyone read any of the reports you sent back as a terribly self-important third secretary from the Embassy in Stockholm? Probably not. But when I went to Beijing, it was completely different, because I was cross-posted there.
There my job was the study and analysis of Chinese domestic politics. Between ‘84 and ‘86, living in 80s, late ‘86 early ‘87, so a couple of years before Tiananmen, but I was back on a short-term mission in Beijing at the time of Tiananmen, and one of my deepest memories, reflections and impacts from my life in China was being in Tiananmen Square in the week leading up to the massacre, and when there was protests of a million students in that square And walking around the square, talking to all these young, wild-eyed kids, enthusiasts for democracy, about the new China they were dreaming of. That was about three or four days before they were all run over, and many of them shot.
Alan Fleischmann
I didn't realize that you actually were, you know, were there actually at that moment.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
It leaves an indelible impression on your face. I remember walking out the first day I was there on the 20th of May, 1989 from underneath the portrait of Mao through the Forbidden City, and coming out onto the square and just seeing this massive humanity as I'd never seen before, because I've been posted there for three years. I knew the city very well by that stage and protest banners saying, down with the Communist Party, democracy for all flags hand printed with the characters democracy on them, hauled up on the side of the revolutionary history museum, the Great Hall of the People, and saying to myself and the deepest recesses of my soul and my mind, this cannot last. I know this communist party too well. Unfortunately, I was right.
Alan Fleischmann
Amazing. How long were you there before, and how long were you there after Tiananmen Square?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred on the fourth of June. I arrived in Beijing on the 20th, left Beijing round about the 27th so I was there until about a week before the massacre, but the protests had been running by that stage for several weeks. So I was kind of there at that at the apex of the massacre, and arrived in town the day they declared martial law and arrested the then premier Zhao Ziyang, who was then put into prison.
Alan Fleischmann
So that that must have been a huge, profound crossing the roads, I guess, fork in the road of some sort, because you went back to Australia, you worked on the labor campaign of Wayne Goss. I mean, was that part of the reason why you did that?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
But I think what happened was I went back and then they put me onto the planning staff in the Foreign Service, bit like the planning staff in the State Department. So, and I remember being given a project to work on, Alan, which was on Mikhail Gorbachev's impact on the future security architecture of the Asia Pacific because of the Soviet Pacific fleet, and what did it all mean in terms of perestroika? So, but here is what happened.
So I'm happy planning staff where I take three months to write this thoughtful, what I thought was thoughtful, memorandum for our foreign minister. Waited for a month, got the paper back and on the front page, it had “good work.” And I thought, what on earth am I doing here? Like, it's like being a voyeur on the world with a limited audience, writing interesting intellectual novels for no one who really reads them and does anything with them. So that's when I said, I need to get into the real world, and that was making a difference on the ground by becoming active in political life. So I returned to my home state of Queensland, the Australian Labor Party had been in the political wilderness there for 32 years. Practically since before I had been born. And it had turned into a classic, what I describe as, you know, semi-corrupt, Huey Long type state, if that makes sense. And with a massive electoral gerrymander, which would have made most American politicians blush given its scale. And so anyway, I went to work for the leader of the Labor Party in the state as his chief of staff, and we campaigned hard, and we actually managed to win. And then at the tender age of 31, I became the Chief of Staff of the premier, a governor in the US system. And then that's what began my political pilgrimage.
Alan Fleischmann
But you also did private sector service with KPMG, right?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
So yeah, I rolled ahead, worked for the premier for several years, became head of the cabin office for several years, but then ran for federal office in 1996 and my first run at federal office, I lost. So then, with two young kids and a wife to support, I was thrown into the wilderness and then had to make my own way in the private sector. So I became a business consultant on the Chinese market for KPMG Australia, and then had to generate my first set of P and L's. It was a really useful experience. I'd move from all the comforts of diplomatic and bureaucratic and some of the comforts of political life into the hard world of business and commerce. It's the best thing that ever happened to me.
Alan Fleischmann
How long did you do that before you went back in it?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I ran at the subsequent election, but enough to know what it takes to work to make a project work for a project to become bankable. So I worked on multiple projects in China, power generation projects and manufacturing projects and a whole range of other things.
Alan Fleischmann
And you've been, convinced right after the, you know, your loss of election, when you ran for office, that you would never do it again. Or was there a part of you that said, I know I'm in running it?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think the part of the beginning of wisdom which I could have began to acquire at that stage was, know thyself. And, there was a part of me which could never be at rest until I had achieved a political mission, so much as rational man said, go off and do other things. And I had an opportunity to return to the Foreign Service, by the way, right as a professional diplomat, and to go to Shanghai as our Consul General. But that opportunity was removed with a change in federal government of time. And so listening to kind of the still, small voice it was, hey, this is the mission before you, and you're not going to be fulfilled personally unless you're actually listening to that. And off you go. And so you then throw yourself once more into the breach, young man, and or if it turned out badly, more like fourth into the Valley of Death, Rome, the 600 you know.
Alan Fleischmann
and then you ran for office again in ‘98, was that when you got elected?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, I was elected, became Member of Parliament and a backbencher in the Australian parliamentary system and rose through the ranks from there, and by 2000 and end of 2006 that's about eight years later, I became leader of the Australian Labor Party.
Alan Fleischmann
And you were Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs prior to then and then trade.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, France, Shadow Foreign Minister, Shadow trade minister, yeah. And so it was good parliamentary experience. This was during the Iraq War, when the Australian Labor Party, unlike the British Labor Party, opposed the Iraq War, even though we're in political opposition. So in Parliament, we voted against sending troops to Iraq because it didn't make sense to us. Just didn't because of the ambiguities about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. So I was thrown into the front line of that debate. We had the Blair government in Britain being defined by President Bush at the time as being the good Labor Party and the Australian Labor Party with me near the leadership the bad Labor Party because we weren't supporting the war. So I've never quite forgiven Tony Blair for that.
Alan Fleischmann
Although history should turn your way very quickly.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think so, but they never did find those WMD, did they? The whole rationale kind of evaporated. We supported entirely the war in Afghanistan because of what had happened in this country, the United States, on September 11. This was a a terrorist attack sponsored through the Taliban controlled Afghanistan state. Therefore our treaty ally, the United States, had been attacked, and therefore we would go to war with the United States to eliminate the Taliban. And we did bipartisan support. That was in 2001, but we thought Iraq in 2003 was just a bridge too far.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you know at that point when you were, you know, obviously the foreign, Foreign Affairs and Trade part of your leadership team that you were going to become the leader of the whole party?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Was that a definitely, no, it's in our parliamentary system. In those days, it was, you had to secure a majority vote of the members of parliament. And so, you know, and the Australian Labor Party was made up of factions, a bit like the Japanese LDP. My great skill in life, Alan, was that I belong to what could only be described as the most bonsai of factions like this. It was a tiny faction from my own home state, and maybe because I was not part of the other larger factions, but had a growing level of public support because of my public role as Shadow Foreign Minister, both during the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War and the post-Iraq War debacle, that because I became very well known in the Australian public mind, and because I was not part of the normal factional machinery of the Labor Party, that when they got sick and tired of losing elections, that's the Australian Labor Party, they said, why don't we give this guy a go? Mind you, I had to challenge my predecessor, which is never, never pretty. It's like having a primary for the leadership of your party. It's not pretty, but they never are.
Alan Fleischmann
But you knew how to be done well.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I wanted our party to win and to become the government of the country, and I could not see my predecessors winning the subsequent election. So I looked around to see if there are others who could pull it off, and in the political geography of Australia, unless you from the Labor Party win a reasonable number of seats in Queensland, which is a notoriously conservative state, my own home state, remember Arkansas? The analogy is Tennessee, Kentucky, then you could never win effectively federally, because you were not winning enough seats in that particular state. But because I came from there, then the bet was that I could do okay, and I did. We won a majority of seats in that state when I became Prime Minister
Alan Fleischmann
How long were you Prime Minister? What year were you Prime Minister?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Prime Minister from 2007 through until 2010, then I was replaced by my deputy. An internal party coup, and then I, because that didn't work out for the party, they invited me back in 2013 to try and save the election at the end of 2013, a turbulent time, but we got a lot of things done in our period in office.
Alan Fleischmann
No regrets, I assume either.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, no, at the end of it, if you ask this question, do I have any regrets about running for political office and becoming Prime Minister and then becoming Prime Minister again, being Foreign Minister in between times? No, no regrets. Because, as I said, the key to all this is to know yourself. Know what your interests are, know what your values are, know what you can do with your life, throwing yourself at it full speed, no half measures, and so therefore, no, I'm completely contented with that. Could you have done better? Of course. Did you make mistakes? Let me count the ways. But that's quite different from regretting a fundamental career choice.
Alan Fleischmann
You've been Prime Minister twice. You were foreign minister and then ambassador. I know in between, you were in an Asian society. You did other things as well. But was that a difficult decision?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
After I left Australian politics, I came to America in 2014 a decade ago, and a year at Harvard at the Kennedy School working on US-China relations, back to my old shtick, and then the Asia Society asked me to become its president in New York. So I went there, and then running a think tank, and then running the entire institution, but getting to know it, you really love America. I never really spent much time in this country before. I had traveled much more to China than ever traveled to United States. So this was a brand new adventure for me. And then Prime Minister Albanese, a couple of years ago, asked me to come here as Ambassador – see I had to think about it. My conversation with him was about what he wanted me to do. So we, once I was clear what my mission was, I said, yeah, so I regard it as my sort of career trajectory of continuing and permanent demotion, which is Prime Minister, then foreign minister, and then senior think tanker and then ambassador. I'll probably end up being sent back to Beijing next as first secretary, just to circle. Complete the circle.
Alan Fleischmann
Maybe that would be the greatest assignment, because you know better than anybody.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
So I'm not sure the Chinese would welcome me. I've written a few books which are modestly critical of Xi Jinping on the way through, not polemical, just analytical. The last book that I did was on Xi Jinping came out a couple of months ago. It's about Xi Jinping’s ideological worldview, his Marxism, his Leninism, his nationalism, and what motivates him. The previous book two years back before that's called The Avoidable War, and that's about the future of US-China relations.
Alan Fleischmann
And how was the last time you were in China?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Now, the truth is, just before COVID broke out, and I've not had the opportunity, really, to go back, because once the COVID restrictions were lifted I was sent here, really, as ambassador. So I've been full-time, head down, tail up in Washington, D.C., engaged in the unfolding wonder of American politics.
Alan Fleischmann
Well said. So you've done everything, actually, you've been in the private sector, you've been in some civil society. You've been a leader among organizations at the International Peace Institute, Asian society, as we mentioned, the Center for Strategic International Studies, you've done things with the World Economic Forum on China, written books. What do you consider, if there's a Rudd doctrine, what would you consider the Rudd doctrine to be?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
If it's about US-China relations, which I think is one of the fundamental questions for the future of the 21st century, there are others about technology and artificial intelligence and about demography in the future, but US-China relations is one of them. I think it's what I call a doctrine of managed strategic competition. The reality is that China and the United States are strategic competitors. Chinese may not wish to acknowledge that publicly, but that's the reality. Geopolitically, geo-economically, geo-technologically, ideologically, there's a competition underway. The question is, can you manage that competition in a way which reduces the risk of each side blowing their brains out?
And that's always been my view. So when I wrote the book The Avoidable War, it was to explain this concept of managed strategic competition, which really has three components.
Core national interests on each side, which obviously to be based on a series of mutual deterrence and mutual understanding, and that goes to the core question of Taiwan as well. Secondly, competition and all other domains across trade, investment, technology, ideology, and then a third domain, which is defining those areas where you can still have strategic cooperation, and namely in areas which affect the global commons and basic stuff, like, you know, can we work on a cure for cancer together, given the number of cancer sufferers in both countries? So if you were to read the book, it takes us through the arguments about how that is a doable framework, as seen both from the lens of Beijing and from Washington, without conceding your fundamental national interests and fundamental national values. So if I have to quote a Rudd doctrine, it's outlined in that book, and it's called Managed strategic competition.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very cool. And you have, is it known by those who are students of Kevin Rudd how much you focus on the China-US? China relations is a big part of your foreign policy.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, I suppose I have two emphases in what I've written. One is about China domestically. Hence why I did this pther book, I mean, I went back to Oxford University at the tender age of 59 to do a D.Phil on Xi Jinping’s ideological worldview. That was four years of complete insanity on my part. But that formed the thesis, I graduated in 2022. The thesis, so the dissertation became the basis for the book, which I wrote in 2023 and published at the end of 2024, so part of my academic work and research work and passion is what actually is happening in China itself, and how did the Chinese leadership view reality. The other half of my work is the US-China relationship and how to manage it. The two are related. You cannot begin to understand US-China relations until you understand the lens which each country gives to that relationship themselves. Of course, as Australians, we're not neutral. I mean, we are allies of the United States. We now rely on the United States, so no one's going to be neutral in their analysis, and I'll bring that lens to bear as well, but I tried to bring forward a framework, managed strategic competition, which could be saleable in both capitals.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. In your latest book, tell us a little bit about what you encourage people to read, and what prompted you is, we obviously went through this dissertation, you got your degree, and probably realized that there was a lot you could share with the greater world.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, yeah. Well, turning it into a book entitled On Xi Jinping was to invite people into the ideological world of the Chinese Communist Party. Now, as you know, this is not a good airport novel. It's a bit heavy going. I tried to lighten it up as much as possible, but it's pretty dense. But what I say in the preface to the book is, if you want a cheats guide to the book, what you Americans call Cliff Notes, here are the must read chapters. You know, 1, 2, 4, and 16. But I said, if you are a serious nerd, then put your hair shirt on and read the rest.
Alan Fleischmann
We're going to recommend to our listeners to read the whole thing, which is great given obviously the change of government here, the global landscape evolving every day. What is your perspective right now on US-China relationships? A big, big, broad question there. And. You think it's changed as you publish the book even, no?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think the fundamentals of the relationship are much as I've described in the book. What's changed? Obviously, the election of President Trump. On the deterrence side of the relationship, namely, deterring China from taking unilateral military action. The Chinese, in my analysis, deeply respectful of President Trump's strength. As Marxist, Leninist, they are respectful of strength and contemptuous of weakness. So that's an important undergirding factor in how this relationship will unfold. The second is what happens to the future of the economic relationship, both in terms of trade and tariffs, what happens in terms of foreign direct investment, what happens in terms of export restrictions on technology, and what may happen in other economic domains, including the future of the currency, the Chinese renminbi. But this is very early days in the administration and how both countries could agree to carve an agreement on these highly contentious questions remains to be seen.
Alan Fleischmann
Do you think there are players out there in the EU that you have kind of a, can benefit from what's, you know, considered a very tense relationship between the US and China. Are they already doing it? And they potentially have the what are the greater risks that you see?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I think you know, knowing some of President Trump's team, somewhat the new National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz is super sharp and analytical. Secretary of State, Rubio is super sharp and analytical. Both of them have spent a lot of time working on the China file. He directed the CIA. John Radcliffe, super sharp, focused on China. President Trump is well served and on the economic team, Secretary treasury, Scott Besant, chair of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, they both understand China, and they understand China's impact on global markets. But this is we're not even into the second week of this administration. It's got to settle in. And under those circumstances, I think the challenge is clear to the incoming administration, but understandably, it's going to take some time to work through it. But on the personnel front, both those individuals I've just listed and some of those working for them who I know even better, I think the President has got a competent team, a highly competent team working for him.
Alan Fleischmann
And so you're okay with the economic, how are you with the the foreign policy side of it?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, well, national security, foreign policy, the economic side said, I think the team is strong. Notice also that President Trump invited Xi Jinping to his inauguration. Xi Jinping sent the Chinese Vice President Han Zheng to the inauguration. China was pleased about that. And there are very few foreign delegations at the inauguration. I think China, Italy, Argentina, the foreign ministers of Australia, India and Japan. That was about it, frankly. So as a gesture to the Chinese, that was a good move by the President to get the ball rolling, but it's so early in this process, we do not know how it's going to land.
Alan Fleischmann
And did you, were you surprised by his invite to the president?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Not really, because the president, if you look at his first term in office, has always sought, I think, to be courteous to the Chinese leadership. Remember the first meeting between them at Mar a Lago in the first Trump presidency, followed not long after by his state visit, plus to Beijing and the Forbidden City. And despite what happened with Covid, which came out of China and so radically affected the 2020 election, the President has sought always to maintain a well functioning personal relationship with leaders of major countries. I think that's the case with Xi Jinping. So far so good, but it's structurally a really difficult relationship to manage for any president United States.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you actually, have you been asked by either party to play the role mediator at different times, or not really?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Oh, God, no. The United States is perfectly capable of engaging the Chinese directly. They don't need helpful sort of foreign barbarians from third countries like me to stick my nose into it. I've always been around, you know, to chat if people want to have a quiet chat, but no, the United States knows how to conduct itself and its relations with the Chinese.
Alan Fleischmann
Are there leadership principles that have guided your career, and are there leadership principles that you would want because of where we are right now in diplomatic world and lack of diplomacy, I would argue, sometimes and technology and concerns, and all the different kinds of wars that are going on that are commercial, are there certain skills and principles you would call on today that were not as urgently needed before, but are more needed today, I would argue, probably private and civil society?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Yeah, I think when I first came to America, Alan, my best way to answer your question is this. In the year I spent at Harvard working at the Belfer Center on US-China relations, the guys and girls at the Institute of Politics up there asked me to teach a course. So mind you, I just emerged from politics in Australia. The last thing I wanted to do is politics again. But I did. I call it politics and purpose, and this is my way of answering your question. So I put up the course structure for the semester and the seminars that I would run. And so this large number of kids from across the Harvard College and from the graduate schools arrived. All of them wanted to become president of United States. After all, it's Harvard, and they're all 19 years old, 20 years old, 21 years old. Even the foreigners want to become president of the United States. So I had to gently introduce them to the realities of the American Constitution. You had to be born in America to become president.
But what I said was the following. First seminar, what do you believe in? Philosophically, theologically, combination of the above subject. The second seminar, seminar principle number two, why do you believe that? What's your epistemology? What's your basis for knowledge, for understanding and reaching those conclusions? Thirdly, third seminar, third principle, if that's what you believe, and that's why you believe it, what values proceed from that set of beliefs? Because they'll become your values for life and become your moral compass. Fourthly, fourth principle, what are you naturally interested in? Because that's going to be what you're going to be best at. My wife's a psychologist. She's smart, she's super smart. She's also a business entrepreneur, so she's much more successful in her life than I've ever been in mine. And she always says, a psychologist, you're going to be best at the stuff that you're naturally interested in. And rather than kids through university trying to be something that they think they should be doing, they should be doing the stuff which lights up their lights and, frankly, excites their area of fascination.
Two last principles, okay, that's what you believe in and why you believe it. That's the values you have as a result, and this is what you're naturally interested in. How do you square the circle between all four of the above in the options for your future, what best approximates with a life and purpose and mission and professional area which brings together your values and your interests? And then finally, I said to them all, but why the hell do you want to go into politics and do all of that without ever touching the political process? But if the answer still at the end of, end of the fifth principle is, yeah, but politics is my vocation, to do these things, I then would say to them, so what the hell are you doing in my class? Get out there and organize. Get busy, get to work. That's kind of my best answer to your question. And useful principles to guide leadership, both as a person setting out in life. But as you know, life gets rough. It's not all, you know, a bit of roses. It's not all beer and Skittles as the British would say, it's you're going to be thrown into times of hardship. So unless you've got that framework pretty clearly sorted in your mind and in your heart, then you're not going to have enough resilience to proceed and to succeed.
Alan Fleischmann
Has being an ambassador to Washington surprised you?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Not a lot, because, I mean, I know America now, and I love America. You know, you're about as crazy as we are in Australia. And so we have no judgment, by the way, for that reason, we have a slightly wild democracy as well. But none of this, none of that, phases me. The one thing that I was not prepared for in my head was just how big this country is. Like, it's not just geography. We've got a big country too. It's called Australia, yeah, and Australia is the same size as America, minus Alaska. Just that we only have 27 million people. So it's just how big this place is. So therefore, to be effective in sort of job that I have in Washington, D.C. at the moment, it's simply the number of people you need to engage, across the administration, across the Congress, across the think tanks, across America's corporate leadership, across the governors and the states to get stuff done. I hadn't really factored that in, like it's just an order of magnitude.
I'm reminded every time I go to an airport somewhere, and you can be in the middle of what I think is a relatively small city somewhere, and the airport's just full of people permanently on the move. For an Australian, this sort of hits you between the eyeballs. There's a lot of people in this country, all over the country, yeah, all over it. We got a large piece of desert in the middle of ours. You got the Great Plains.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I love that. This has been amazing. Anything you would want to share in a closing minute or two to some of the younger folks who are trying to figure out what to do next, what you would recommend them to do we really, truly have a leadership role in public, private and civil society. How important is that to be in navigator, in all three?
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
I'd simply ask young people just to reflect on those four or five questions I ran through before, because each person will come up with a different answer, whether they're Republican or whether they're Democrat, or whether they are in business, or whether they're in politics or whatever part of the country they're from, from Boise, Idaho to Brooklyn in New York. But it's important to ask the questions to take time to reflect on the answers and write it down. It's very helpful.
I'm always trying to learn. I mean, the beginning of wisdom is to know what you don't know and to try and fill in those gaps. I regard books, by the way, as friends, and some of them are all friends, yeah, by the way, my wife hates the fact all of my books are marked up.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, my daughters do that. They write throughout all our books that they read. They like hard books. I try to look at them. I love the idea that the book is no longer the book, it's them, it's the book. And my kids and I love these really deep books. I don't do that as often as I should. It actually makes it much more personal.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Well, I think some people regard books as sacred to the extent that you can't write anything on them. Yeah, I've never had that level of Biblio worship about me.
Alan Fleischmann
You start looking at books on your shelves as an extension of you, in a was
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
That's true. I mean, if you put together all of our books, my wife's myself, there are many 1,000s of volumes, and just through a lifetime of interest in the world. And you know, maybe a fifth of them are on China, and the rest are on everything else that you pursue a drive. Drives my wife slightly nuts how many books I buy. But the truth is, as I said before, a good book is like an old friend. You can keep reading back and coming back and coming back.
Alan Fleischmann
The best books are the ones that are evergreen that you can keep floating from over and over again, exactly. Yeah. Well, I hope you keep writing too, because your books are extraordinary, and I would urge our listeners to buy the last few books, actually the last two in particular, because both are very relevant to today, and probably more relevant than ever, and that we should learn from you and continue to learn from you and your leadership and your thought leadership.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Alternatively, Alan, they just help you go to sleep.
Alan Fleischmann
No they don’t, I promise you, they don't, they wake you up, the opposite. So
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
So the Xi Jinping book was a good book, a good doorstop. It's thick enough.
Alan Fleischmann
It's thick enough, not a door so I promise.
You've been listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and leadershipmattersshow.com. I am your host, Alan Fleischmann. We just spent the last hour with the former Prime Minister and current ambassador from Australia, Kevin Rudd. He is an extraordinary leader, public servant, thought leader and, and as I said, he has really been a leader across public, private and civil society life, not only in his own country, but around the world. And we've had a fascinating discussion about his career, his government service, and his views on diplomacy and a rapidly changing, evolving world. We need more of you, not less of you, and I'm hoping that you'll come back on the show so we can continue to talk about what inspires you.
Ambassador Kevin Rudd
Thanks so much, Alan for having me on the program, and my best greetings to all your listeners, and thank you for doing this, and I look forward to more.
Alan Fleischmann
Thank you.