Kevin Rudd: Trump Presidency a 'Mixed Bag' for China
Interview with BBC World News
On December 5, 2016, ASPI President Kevin Rudd spoke to BBC World News about how China will approach the United States under a Donald Trump administration. Rudd said that, "China will see the Trump presidency as a mixed bag: some opportunities, but a series of genuine strategic challenges as well."
He argued that China is likely to approach the new administration with patience. "There is going to be a fair bit of time for these two administrations to work out each other's negotiating style, and we shouldn't leap to cataclysmic conclusions at an early stage," Rudd cautioned.
Rudd emphasized that the important question is "how do you manage this U.S.-China relationship to deal with the big strategic problem of East Asia, which is the North Korean nuclear weapons program, and how do you manage the trade and currency questions without resulting in a trade and currency war? Because that's disastrous for everybody." (5 min. 19 sec.)