Join Asia Society Northern California on Wednesday, June 9 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern / Thursday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. Brisbane for an off-the-record CEO Briefing on “China’s National ambitions under President Xi: Technology, Economy, Military, Taiwan and Hong Kong” with the Honorable Kevin Rudd, president and CEO of Asia Society, president of Asia Society Policy Institute, and 26th prime minister of Australia.  This will be a small invite-only high-level gathering.

AGENDA

Date: Wednesday, June 9 from 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Pacific

5:00 p.m.   Program Begins
6:00 p.m.   Program Concludes

Link to join virtually will be emailed to guests the day before and an hour before the program is scheduled to begin from Palarp Jumpasut at [email protected].  This will be a Zoom meeting; we encourage participants to turn on their cameras to make this session as interactive as possible.  

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

The Honorable Kevin Rudd

The Honorable Kevin Rudd is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Asia Society, as of January 1st, 2021 and President of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012). He is also a leading international authority on China. He began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics.

As Prime Minister, he led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis, reviewed by the IMF as the most effective stimulus strategy of all member states. Mr. Rudd co-founded the G20 to drive the global response to the crisis. He was active in global foreign policy leadership, serving as a driving force in expanding the East Asia Summit to include the U.S. and Russia. Mr. Rudd legislated for a 20% mandatory renewable energy target for Australia. He was a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability and is a co-author of the report Resilient People, Resilient Planet for the 2012 Rio+20 Conference. His government turned Australia into one of the top ten aid donors in the world – increasing their foreign aid budget to approximately $5 billion. He also appointed Australia’s first ever Ambassador for Women and Girls to support the critical role of women in development and reduce physical and sexual violence against women.

Mr. Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) in New York as its inaugural President in January 2015. ASPI is a “think-do tank” dedicated to using second-track diplomacy to assist governments and businesses in resolving policy challenges within Asia, and between Asia and the West. He was appointed to the IMF Managing Director’s External Advisory Group in 2020. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House in London, a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, a Distinguished Fellow at the Paulson Institute in Chicago, and a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons. He serves on the International Advisory Board of the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University. Mr. Rudd is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.