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The Honorable Kevin Rudd

President

The Hon. Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd became President and CEO of Asia Society in January 2021 and has been president of the Asia Society Policy Institute since January 2015. He served as Australia's 26th Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2012, before returning as Prime Minister in 2013. 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, articles, and essays from 2020 in the collection, The Avoidable War: The Decade of Living Dangerously. This volume works to help make sense of where the U.S.-China relationship is heading in the next decade and follows on from Mr. Rudd’s 2019 collection, The Avoidable War: The Case for Managed Strategic Competition, and 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. 

Mr. Rudd was appointed to the IMF Managing Director’s External Advisory Group in 2020 and is a member of the Global Leadership Council for Sanitation and Water for All. 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

  • India Solar Panels
    report

    Getting India to Net Zero

    New research and modeling to show the opportunities and tradeoffs associated with India’s options to meet its existing emissions reduction targets and increase its medium- and long-term ambition
  • U.S. President Joe Biden meets with China's President Xi Jinping during a virtual summit from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, November 15, 2021.
    report

    Reflections on China and U.S.-China Relations in 2021

    A compendium of 2021 speeches and essays by ASPI President Kevin Rudd on The Avoidable War.
  • Shanghai Skyline
    paper

    China: An Economic and Political Outlook for 2022

    ASPI President Kevin Rudd's policy paper provides an analysis of how China’s economic challenges are likely to shape its politics and policies in the year ahead.
  • AvoidableWar3
    report

    The Avoidable War: The Decade of Living Dangerously

    Kevin Rudd writes on navigating the shoals of U.S.-China relations.
  • ASPI Notes
    report

    ASPI Notes for the Biden Administration

    Creative and practical ideas for how the United States might re-engage in the Asia Pacific in the critical first six months of the new administration.
  • The New Geopolitics of China’s Climate Leadership
    report

    The New Geopolitics of China’s Climate Leadership

    China has built up enormous goodwill in recent years for staying the course with the Paris Agreement. This essay outlines why climate leadership must remain an important geopolitical priority for China in the years ahead.
  • 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.

Commentary

Jiang Zemin
article

Jiang Zemin, Steward of China's Rise

Kevin Rudd writes on Jiang Zemin's role in China's rise for Lowy Insitute's The Interpreter.
A woman walks past a logo of the G20 Summit, in Jakarta on November 8, 2022.
article

The Climate Fight Is Asia’s Leadership Opportunity

Kevin Rudd and Ban Ki-moon write in Project Syndicate about the role Asia could play in the fight against climate change.
US President Joe Biden (R) and China's President Xi Jinping (L) shake hands as they meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on November 14, 2022.
article

What Biden and Xi Can Agree On

Kevin Rudd writes in The Atlantic about how the leaders of the U.S. and China can lower the temperature between the two countries.
China's Standing Committee Members Of The 20th CPC Central Committee Meet With Press
article

The Return of Red China

Kevin Rudd writes in Foreign Affairs about how Xi Jinping is bringing back Marxism to China.
Xi Jinping
article

Xi Jinping is China’s Most Audacious Leader for Decades

Kevin Rudd writes in The Economist about Xi Jinping's leadership.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a summit at the Belt and Road Forum on May 15, 2017 in Beijing, China.
article

Xi’s Congress Report Lays Bare an Aggressive and Statist Worldview

Kevin Rudd writes in the Financial Times about Xi Jinping's Work Report to the 20th Party Congress and how it provides a framework for understanding the ideological direction of China for the next five years.
19th National Congress Of The Communist Party Of China (CPC)
article

Security, Not Growth, Is Xi’s Focus

Kevin Rudd writes in The Wall Street Journal about how Xi Jinping is likely to rebalance the country's priorities at the upcoming 20th Party Congress.
Belgium-EU-China-Summit
article

Xi’s Third Term May Offer a Limited Window to Stabilize EU-China Relations

Kevin Rudd writes in Le Monde about why China may seek to stabilize its relationship with the EU.
 Start of paddy cultivation at West Bengal,West Bengal,India
article

Three Challenges That Need to be Managed to Make Net Zero Emissions a Reality in India

Kevin Rudd, Ban Ki-moon, and Arvind Panagariya write about opportunities in India to accelerate climate actions toward net zero emission.
Two Electric engineer wearing Personal protective equipment working on top of wind turbine farm
article

Asian Nations Should Work Together to Accelerate Decarbonization

Kevin Rudd and Ban Ki-moon write on the urgent need for accelerated climate action and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific.
The World According to Xi Jinping: What China's Ideologue in Chief Really Believes
article

The World According to Xi Jinping: What China's Ideologue in Chief Really Believes

Kevin Rudd writes in Foreign Affairs about the role of ideology in Xi Jinping's worldview.
Kevin Rudd and Wang Yi
speech

Opening Remarks for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's Address to the Asia Society

Kevin Rudd's opening remarks at an Asia Society event featuring Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister of China.
India Solar Panels
report

Getting India to Net Zero

New research and modeling to show the opportunities and tradeoffs associated with India’s options to meet its existing emissions reduction targets and increase its medium- and long-term ambition
100 yuan banknote on the background of stock charts.
speech

The Chinese Economy, the 20th Party Congress, and Implications for U.S.-China Relations

Kevin Rudd's speech delivered as the Inaugural Susan Shirk Lecture on U.S.-China Relations.
The US and China flags stand behind a microphone awaiting the arrival of US Senator John McCain, who was joined by Senators Lindsey Graham Amy Klobuchar for a press conference at the US Embassy in Beijing on April 9, 2009 during the China stop of the Congressional Delegation's fact-finding Asia-tour. Senator McCain said he urged Chinese officials in talks here to back a strong United Nations response to North Korea's rocket launch, but indicated China had resisted.
article

Rivals Within Reason? U.S.-Chinese Competition Is Getting Sharper — but Doesn’t Necessarily Have to Get More Dangerous

Kevin Rudd writes in Foreign Affairs about the state of the U.S.-China relations and managed strategic competition.
Xi Putin Flags
interview

Kevin Rudd on the Decade of Living Dangerously

Asia Society and ASPI President Kevin Rudd sat down with The Wire China's David Barboza to discuss the themes of his new book on U.S.-China relations.
President of the Asia Society and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd speaks as he introduces U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an event at Jack Morton Auditorium of George Washington University May 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. Blinken delivered a speech on the Biden administration’s policy toward China during the event hosted by the Asia Society Policy Institute.
speech

Opening Remarks to the Biden Administration's Approach to China

Kevin Rudd's introductory remarks, opening U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's address on the administration's policy towards China.
China Economy
speech

Xi Jinping’s Year of Instability

Kevin Rudd delivers remarks on the challenges facing China's economy in 2022.

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  • Kevin Rudd Bio.pdf (PDF, 201.54 KB)

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Tweets by @MrKRudd

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