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The Honorable Kevin Rudd

President

The Hon. Kevin Rudd

The Honorable Kevin Rudd 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. Australia was the only major developed economy not to go into recession. Mr. Rudd co‑founded the G20 to drive the global response to the crisis, which in 2009 helped prevent the crisis from spiraling into depression.

As Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in expanding the East Asia Summit to include both the U.S. and Russia in 2010, and launched the long-term concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia Pacific Community. On climate change, Mr. Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 and legislated in 2008 for a 20 percent mandatory renewable energy target for Australia. He represented Australia at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit which produced the Copenhagen Accord, for the first time committing states to not allow temperature increases beyond two degrees. He was appointed 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. This report was the first to recommend the negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Mr. Rudd drove Australia’s successful bid for its non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2012-2014. His government also saw the near doubling of Australia’s foreign aid budget to approximately $5 billion, making Australia then one of the top ten aid donors in the world. 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.

Domestically, Mr. Rudd delivered Australia’s formal national apology to indigenous Australians. In education, his government introduced Australia’s first-ever nationwide school curriculum, undertook the biggest-ever capital investment program in Australian schools with the building of thousands of new state of the art libraries across the country, as well as introducing the first-ever mandatory national assessment system of literacy and numeracy standards. In health, Mr. Rudd in 2010 negotiated with the Australian states a National Health and Hospitals Reform Agreement, the biggest reform and investment in the health system since the introduction of Medicare 30 years before. His government established a national network of leading-edge cancer care centers across Australia, before introducing the world’s first ever plain-packaging regime for all tobacco products. To improve the rate of organ and tissue donation, he established Australia’s first National Organ and Tissue Transplant Authority. In 2010, his government introduced Australia’s first-ever paid parental leave scheme and implemented the biggest increase in, and reform of, the age pension since federation. He also founded the National Broadband Network to deliver high-speed broadband for every household, business, school, hospital, and GP in the country.

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. In this capacity he chaired an international panel which produced an ASPI report entitled on the development of long-term security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region, entitled Preserving the Long Peace in Asia. Mr. Rudd released a series of speeches delivered during 2019 in the collection, The Avoidable War: The Case for Managed Strategic Competition. This volume works to help make sense of where the U.S.-China relationship is heading in the current period of strategic competition, and follows on from Mr. Rudd’s 2018 collection, The Avoidable War: Reflections on U.S.-China Relations and the End of Strategic Engagement.

Mr. Rudd worked as a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2014, where he produced a major policy paper, U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping. Mr. Rudd remains a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School.

Mr. Rudd is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute in New York, a United Nations-related think tank dedicated to peace and security issues, focusing on the Middle East. In his IPI capacity, Mr. Rudd in 2015-16 chaired a two-year-long Independent Commission on Multilateralism, which produced a comprehensive report on reforming the UN system entitled UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World. Since 2015, Mr. Rudd has also been Chair of Sanitation and Water for All, a global partnership of government and non-government organizations dedicated to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6.

Mr. Rudd 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.

Mr. Rudd in his private capacity has established the Australian National Apology Foundation to continue to promote reconciliation and closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

Mr. Rudd is a regular contributor to global media on international relations, climate change and China. He has been featured in the Financial Times, The New York Times and Le Monde, and regularly appears on the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox and Bloomberg.

Reports

  • ASPI Notes
    report

    ASPI Notes for the Biden Administration

    ASPI Notes for the Biden Administration is designed to offer creative and practical ideas for how the United States might re-engage in the Asia Pacific, particularly in the critical first six months of the new administration.
  • US and China G20 Delegations 2018
    report

    The Avoidable War: The Case for Managed Strategic Competition

    A compendium of 2019 speeches by ASPI President Kevin Rudd on the need to manage U.S.-China competition.
  • Donald Trump with Xi Jinping at Welcoming Ceremony in China
    report

    The Avoidable War: U.S.-China Relations and the End of Strategic Engagement

    A compendium of six speeches by ASPI President Kevin Rudd on the increasingly fraught ties between the U.S and China.
  • Flags of Southeast Asian nations fly in Hanoi ahead of the 16th ASEAN Summit, 2010. (Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images)
    report

    Preserving the Long Peace in Asia

    ASPI report on how to strengthen regional institutions in the Asia-Pacific to manage peace and security in increasingly turbulent times.
  • report

    UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World

    In his capacity as Chair of The Independent Commission on Multilateralism, ASPI President Kevin Rudd published a report with recommendations for the next UN Secretary General.
  • (Feng Li/Getty Images)
    report

    U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping

    In his report for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, ASPI President Kevin Rudd recommends a common strategic narrative to guide the U.S.-China relationship.

Commentary

ASPI Notes
report

ASPI Notes for the Biden Administration

ASPI Notes for the Biden Administration is designed to offer creative and practical ideas for how the United States might re-engage in the Asia Pacific, particularly in the critical first six months of the new administration.
Xi Jinping
speech

China Has Politics Too

Kevin Rudd delivers a speech on the impact of Chinese domestic politics and economic policy on the future of U.S.-China relations.
G20
article

The Asia-Pacific Makes the G20 Indispensable

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Kevin Rudd write on why the G20 remains indispensable to the Asia-Pacific.
Rudd Draco
interview

The Future of Democracy and Philanthropy

Andreas Dracopoulos joins Kevin Rudd to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the functioning of democracies in the 21st century.
IMF
article

The Recovery Needs Development Aid

Kevin Rudd writes on why governments need to increase their foreign aid during his crisis, including to assist with the global recovery.
Jaishankar
article

India's Destiny Now Lies in its Own Hands

Kevin Rudd pens an op-ed for The Economic Times on Subrahmanyam Jaishankar's new book, and India's future.
KR Global Think tank Speech
speech

The Importance of Multilateral and International Cooperation

In a speech for the Sixth Global Think Tank Summit, Kevin Rudd stressed the critical importance of multilateral and international cooperation in combatting the transnational challenge of the pandemic.
Xi jinping party congress
article

China Backslides on Economic Reform

Under Xi Jinping, Beijing hasn’t liberalized. It’s doubled down on politically directed state capitalism.
Coal
article

China’s Thirst For Coal is Economically Shortsighted and Environmentally Reckless

Kevin Rudd writes on why China’s decisions on coal will determine the future of our climate crisis.
PLA Xi JInPing
article

Beware the Guns of August—in Asia

Kevin Rudd in Foreign Affairs on how to keep U.S-Chinese tensions from sparking a war.
Coal fired power plant
article

Stimulus Opportunity Knocks for Climate Action

Kevin Rudd and Patrick Suckling write too few stimulus packages globally are reaping the double-dividend of both investing in growth and jobs, and in the transition to low emissions, more climate-resilient economies.
Shanghai
article

China's Economic Crossroads

ASPI President Kevin Rudd and Rhodium Group's Founding Partner Daniel Rosen also penned an op-ed on the China Dashboard's findings.
US China
article

The Coming Post-COVID Anarchy

Kevin Rudd writes in Foreign Affairs that the pandemic bodes Ill for both American and Chinese power—and for the global order.
WHO
article

Kevin Rudd on America, China and saving the WHO

Kevin Rudd penned a piece for The Economist detailing the need for an “M7” group of countries to rescue global institutions.
Shinzo Abe
article

Japan Should Lead G-20 in Devising Global Coronavirus Rescue Package

Former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Gordon Brown urge Abe to organize a pledging conference to respond to COVID-19.
KR G20 Summit London
article

World Leaders Must Step Up To Lead Us Through This Crisis

Kevin Rudd writes: global action is not an optional extra. It's fundamental to national recovery.
HK Stocks
article

The Coronavirus and Financial Contagions Demand a Joint Response. Can China and the U.S. Deliver?

Kevin Rudd writes as the public health crisis spreads to global markets, recovery will depend on two factors: whether China seizes the chance to pursue economic reform, and if the U.S. and other major economies take coordinated action.
Trump Coronavirus
article

People Don't Trust Their Governments to Handle the Coronavirus Crisis

Kevin Rudd says the current collapse in global equities markets is mirroring a broader collapse in global public confidence.

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On Twitter

Tweets by @MrKRudd

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