This has not been clarified. Mr Biden has maintained his predecessor’s most aggressive policy towards Beijing, and China’s attachment to Russia over the war in Ukraine has simply created another wedge between the world’s two superpowers. Many factors came together “to remove political and diplomatic isolation from the relationship, so we now have a bunch of uncovered wires and cables,” said Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister and longtime Chinese expert who has met every leader since Deng Xiaoping. “The chances of the episodes causing crises that lead to escalation and conflict and ultimately war are much higher than ever.” In a new book, The war that can be avoided: The dangers of a catastrophic conflict between the US and China Xi Jinping, Mr. Rand plans a possible future for relations between Washington and Beijing. He recently spoke to The Globe from Australia, where he is running for the Labor Party in the federal election. The Globe and Mail: You write that the US-China relationship is starting to get out of control. How did this happen? There are three reasons. One is the objective change in the balance of power between the two countries. The economic and technological gap between China and the US military is much smaller than ever. And that changes strategic realities and perceptions. Secondly, based on this but also because of its dynamic leadership, Xi Jinping changed China’s general strategy from passive to active, assertive to aggressive, seeking to change the status quo ante both at home and abroad. We are not entering a new Cold War with China – although it would be better if we were And third, starting in 2017, you are starting to see three waves of American reaction. Obama turns to Asia. Trump’s statement on strategic competition and the end of the engagement strategy. And then the Biden government doubles that, seeking to give it more cohesive power by building alliances. How does the crisis in Ukraine fit into this context? Ukraine has made even more pronounced than before the emerging ideological and geopolitical conflict between China and its authoritarian allies on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other. There are also two series of warnings from this crisis, for the United States and the rest of the democratic world and for China. I think that after 35 years of reform and openness, it has not become fashionable in the democratic world to conclude that China could ever consider violence if needed to stay in power or pursue its basic goals. Ukraine provides Exhibit A that there is a marked lack of sentiment on the issue of violence in authoritarian states. As for the Beijing warning, it’s above the underlying ideological assumption in China that the US and the democratic world were a bunch of pussy and in inevitable structural decline, unable to agree on anything with a hard edge. The fact that the democratic world can unite in something as outrageous as this, I think, will raise some concerns, if not a correction in Beijing. A key point you make in the book is the connection between long-term Chinese designs in Taiwan and Xi Jinping’s personal longevity. Can you expand on that? I think there has been an inability to understand the real difference that Xi Jinping brings to Chinese politics and the foreign policy equation. There are many differences between Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi, but one of these key differences is that on the Taiwan issue, they never had a timeline. Without saying that, the evidence shows that Xi is moving on a schedule. And in 2049, when they say they will achieve the great revitalization of the Chinese nation, it is not so far away. It’s unthinkable from their worldview that this can be achieved in the absence of Taiwan, so you start coming back from there. When you look at things like the military modernization program, which is set for 2027, you start to see that they show a timeline that will be more dangerous from the late 2020s to the mid-2030s. that Xi Jinping will never give up leadership voluntarily in my judgment, so if we exclude an act of nature, we will have Xi finished by 2035. In this case, the danger zone is probably this five years from 2030 . What role can smaller powers like Australia and Canada play in this relationship? I hate to be anti-romantic with that, but I’m a strategic realist as well as an Australian patriot and I think we’re in attendance. The key strategic decisions about the dual nature of this relationship are made in Beijing and Washington. In the case of the United States, Beijing understands the structure of its alliance with 46 allies around the world as a huge power multiplier. The way Beijing assesses its power is totally against the United States and its main allies, especially in Asia. Therefore, the relevance of countries such as Australia and Canada through the NATO framework, are as power multipliers in terms of tough military action or broader support for economic and financial action, such as future sanctions against China. I’m old enough to remember Pierre Trudeau and his contemporary in Australian politics, Gough Whitlam. They were dealing with a China that emerged from the shadows of the Cultural Revolution in a different form of global commitment in the early 1970s. But that happened half a century ago, in a very different set of strategic circumstances. Mr. Rand will start The war that can be avoided in Canada with an event at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in Toronto on May 4.
