The relationship between the U.S. and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault — of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. 

The Asia Society Policy Institute’s (ASPI) Avoidable War Project has culminated in the publication of a book on U.S.-China relations by Asia Society and ASPI President Kevin Rudd, titled "The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China." The work demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls “managed strategic competition.” Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries, and the world.

Join us virtually for the New York launch of The Avoidable War. Singapore Ambassador-at-Large and Asia Society Global Co-Chair Ambassador Chan Heng Chee will deliver opening remarks, and Kevin Rudd will join President and Founder of Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer in conversation on the book and the U.S.-China relationship.

SPEAKERS

Amb. Chan Heng Chee is the Global Co-Chair of Asia Society and Ambassador-at-Large with the Singapore Foreign Ministry. She chairs the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities in the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She is Chairman, Board of Trustees, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS), a member of the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, Deputy Chairman of the Social Science Research Council, a member of the Science of Cities Committee, National Research Foundation, a member of the Advisory Council on the Ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and Data, Ministry of Communications and Information. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the National University of Singapore and a member of the Yale-NUS Governing Board. Previously, she was Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States and Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations with concurrent accreditation as High Commissioner to Canada and Ambassador to Mexico.

Ian Bremmer is President and Founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs, where he is the host of "GZERO World with Ian Bremmer," airing weekly on US national public television. He is also the Harold J. Newman Distinguished Fellow in Geopolitics at the Asia Society Policy Institute. A prolific writer, he is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestseller Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism, which examines the rise of populism across the world. He is a Foreign Affairs columnist and editor-at-large for TIME magazine, and currently teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

The Hon. Kevin Rudd AC is President and CEO of the Asia Society, and inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He served as 26th Prime Minister of Australia (2007 to 2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010 to 2012). He is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute in New York, and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All – a global partnership of government and non-governmental organizations dedicated to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House and the Paulson Institute, and a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons.