Never have I given myself so much anxiety reading a book. I first stated reading The Avoidable War late last year. The book is an examination of Sino-American relations, and what the future might hold. Kevin Rudd is Australia’s former Prime Minister, a previous Minister for Foreign Affairs, and is currently the ambassador of Australia to the United States. Prior to this though, he majored in Chinese language and history and worked for Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT). This gives him a pretty solid background to dissect Chinese-Western relations.
What I was looking for when I picked up The Avoidable War was perhaps some insight into Xi Jinping and what makes him, and by extension, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), tick. All too often, I read news concerning the goings-on in China and come away thinking that the country is like a black box. Just how is the CCP governing China? Why do they make the choices they do? The USA is less of a mystery, as we are exposed to their internal politics all the time—to the point where we could classify it as overexposure in recent years, with every political move dissected endlessly in the media. But how are we to understand how both powers relate to each other if you only have half the picture?
The book starts off with a quick rundown of the history of Chinese-American relations, which is helpful for those of us not hugely familiar with the subject. The next few chapters then go through ten circles that help explain Xi Jinping’s worldview, starting with his more immediate circle, and then expanding out. While they are presented in a rough order, I wouldn’t say that they exist as strict ranking. But this was exactly what I was hoping for. While quite readable (listenable on audiobook), these sections are quite information-dense. I don’t have a strong background in interactions affairs; I spent an exhaustive amount of time at Uni specializing in different field. So I had to parse though the information presented here slowly.
Some of this information was not surprising; many of the decisions being made by Xi and the CCP are, of course, focused on the politics on staying in power. Not on us, no matter how often it is framed that way. Others less so; one of the main reasons Xi views climate change seriously is that he sees it as important to China’s security. That was not something that would have previously occurred to me, and it’s certainly not a view that has been presented in news media. There are also some concerning internal contradictions. Due to the CCPs need to stick their fingers into Chinese businesses and to expand certain sectors as fast as possible, China may be a facing a potential disaster within their financial system. The book was written a few years ago, and while I heard a few whispers about the strain their system was under earlier this year, I haven’t heard of anything breaking—yet. But I have no doubt that if something went haywire, we’d only find out when it became too catastrophic to cover up.
There were some other interesting tidbits here as well: I found the part detailing China’s tariff imposition on Australia in 2019 to be particularly interesting. We had recently tightened our foreign political influence laws (a move not unrelated to Chinese political donors) and solidified the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (The Quad)—a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the US that China felt threatened by. China apparently thought we were the easiest of the four to target, so they put the foot down.
This trade escalation with Australia was paired with China’s simultaneous attempt to de-escalate tensions with both India and Japan. However, the ultranationalists within the communist party weren’t exactly on board with that strategy, and pretty much torpedoed it. The, when Biden took office, he managed to mend many of America’s relations that had been strained under the previous administration, while Australia doubled down on its relationship with Washington. The Quad was not broken down and China’s strategy of ‘killing one to warn one hundred’ backfired in this instance.
What is also clear though is that there is a lot of mutual mistrust between the two powers. China is not content with US having such a dominant role in international affairs. Xi, in particular, seems very preoccupied with this ‘struggle’, especially in regards to Taiwan. At the time of writing, the US did not seem to keen on the idea of loosening its hold on global finance or on the ground in the Indo-Pacific and made some bullish choices in response. Rudd is quite critical of the US here in a number of places, and that criticism is directed at the 1st Trump administration and the Biden administration both.
But then comes the last few chapters. And by the time I got to this point, it was January of this year. And guys? I had to put the damned book down for a bit. This started with talk of the 1st Trump administration’s run around with tariffs and it all disintegrated from there. I did not feel ready to embark on a chapter named “The Decade of Living Dangerously” at all.
It was only this summer I felt able to pick the book up again. The last two chapters are more speculative than the previous parts of the book. They are also the ones who Rudd will probably go back to at some point, as they’re the most affected by the shift in global politics in the last few months. Most of these focus on Taiwan. Yeah, I didn’t feel great going through the multiple hypotheticals Rudd laid down. It made for some depressing reading.
But Sino-American relations do not exist entirely in a vacuum. Putting aside the US as the central focus for a moment, China may move against Taiwan or another part of the Indo-Pacific if they pull away from US protection and there is sufficient jingo-ism within China. The ultranationalists who inadvertently helped sabotage China’s politicking with The Quad are likely to raise their heads again. And the CCP needs to do what it needs in order to keep power at home. But there is a nasty trade off; to loose to another country in Asia that they have a long had tensions with would be a massive loss of face for the CCP, and that too, could destabilize their control on the country.
Sadly, the suggestions that Rudd makes to the US in the chapter on Managed Strategic Competition are not likely to come to pass. As much as I am wallowing around here worrying about the state of the world after reading this book, I really have to wonder what Rudd is thinking right now.
As I mentioned above he is our current ambassador to the US.
You’ll notice I’ve not left a star rating here. The book is a good primer, I won’t lie. But enjoyment? That’s a me problem.
Another me problem is note taking with Audiobooks. I’ve tried to recall everything to the best of my memory here but leaving audio clips is more cumbersome than highlighting sections
For cbr17bingo, this is Red. No I’m not making a communism joke.
EDIT: that’s a bingo second bottom row