I understand that he's lovey dovey with the Chinese, and even speaks Mandarin fluently. Could he undo Australia's decades-long close relations with Uncle Sam? From the newswires:


Chinese media and Australian neighbor Indonesia have welcomed the Labor Party victory that has swept a conservative coalition from power in Canberra and made former diplomat Kevin Rudd prime minister of Australia.

Some Japanese media, however, sounded a note of caution on Sunday over Rudd's close ties to Tokyo's sometime rival, Beijing.

Mandarin speaker Rudd, 50, presented himself to voters as a new-generation leader and is expected to forge closer ties with China and other Asian nations than his predecessor, John Howard.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's spokesman for foreign affairs, Dino Patti Djalal, said Indonesia welcomed Rudd's election because it would improve the chances of success at next month's U.N. climate change summit in Bali.

"President (Yudhoyono) invited Kevin Rudd to attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali. And we are sure that his attendance will have a symbolic meaning for the conference and also will change the political dynamic ... because Australia has not signed the Kyoto Protocol."

Speaking to media in Brisbane, Rudd said: "President Yudhoyono formally invited me to attend the Bali conference, which will of course deal with climate change and where we go to now on Kyoto. I responded positively."

China's official Xinhua news agency carried reports on Sunday of Rudd greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao in fluent Mandarin in September and of his posting to Australia's Beijing embassy in the 1980s.

"This period of history gave him close contact with China and a chance to observe and understand China's politics, economy and culture," the report said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sent a separate message to Rudd, congratulating him on his election victory.

But Rudd's anticipated warmth towards China had some Japanese media worried it might weaken Tokyo ties with Canberra, which in recent years saw the start of talks for a free trade agreement and the signing of a joint defense pact.

"There are views there could be a setback in Australia-Japan relations under the new Rudd administration," the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.

"Rudd, a former diplomat who studied Mandarin, is seen having friendly views towards China," it added.

my main concern with Rudd is that he will stuff up the last 10 years of trying to get back on an even keel with India.  Infort the simplistic view that China is Good and India is "bad" due to NPT signatory issues contradicts everything that holights that just because China is an NPT signatory  doesn't mean that they can load and risk balance their other uranium suppliers.  eg, aust uranium may well be kept away from nuclear weapons enhancement, but that only serves to deload the supply and make it easier to use other supply trains for weapons enhancement.

India is needed for more reasons than China.  They are the largest democracy in the region (if not the world in real terms)

India has far more friendlier trade opportunities

India acts as a countweight to Chinese expansion (and anyone who thinks china will stay benign needs to look at the emerging data)

India is more important in the issue of managing and policing the Straits - where over 90% of our trade traverses

 

The chinese will be ecstatic if they get Hilary over the line. (a look at Bills ferks ups with tech sharing, his political delamination of the US military and his overt fawning to the Chinese will mean they'll be in heaven if she's elected.  I'd rather see Obama get in)

 

I can see that our relationship with India will be felled by his NPT stance.  I can also see some withdrawal by the Japanese.

 

At an East Asian and Asia Minor policy level I have some clear concerns.

 

Yes, he is indeed a commie plant. after all he speaks Mandarin...

Learning a foreign language is a huge commitment. Many people learn it because they find something admirable about the underlying culture. At the time Kevin Rudd learned Chinese, it was a hellhole chiefly known for its slavish adherence to Mao Tse-tung thought, and famines that killed tens of millions. When I used the term Manchurian Candidate, I meant it in a loose sense. The Chinese probably haven't indoctrinated him - the real worry is that he has indoctrinated himself in ways that are negative for Australia and the post-war relationship with Uncle Sam.

Learning Mandarin isn't a big deal - after all he was a DFAT posting, so being bilingual is the tool de rigeur of the position.  In real terms he's one of over nn thousand DFAT employees who can speak another language.

My concern is how far he's gone native.  Certainly the oriental view would be that he's a softer touch due to a number of things. (demonstrating chinese language skills in public is a damocles sword, on one side they'd be chuffed at his willingness to learn their language, on the other hand, it could be perceived as grandstanding for ego's sake.  It wouldn't have been seen as a courtesy as they already knew his fluency from his posting history. (and whoever dealt with him as a diplomat from the mainland has just gone up in value)

 

I'm dead against fawning to china at the expense of India and Japan.

 

Orientals respect strength - and for all Downers early faults, he played the proper role better than most in his final years.

 

It will be interesting to see how he manages Sogovare, Somare and Bainimarana (or how McLellan handles them if he gets the job)

 

 

 

Arrggghhhh! theres a RED under my bed quick call the CIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Learning a foreign language is a huge commitment. Many people learn it because they find something admirable about the underlying culture.

One doesn't have to admire the culture necessarily, as I studied Italian in my youth. Just out of interest, not because I had a desire to travel there or thought much about its culture. Merely as something else to achieve in life.

The Chinese probably haven't indoctrinated him - the real worry is that he has indoctrinated himself in ways that are negative for Australia and the post-war relationship with Uncle Sam.

Why would you even consider that he has been indoctrinated??? Have you been reading James Bond books lately?

 

Curious.

 

Relax about the Chinese, they are going to sink without trace (as an international force) in about 15 years.

 

1 Child policy and most of them 'selected' to be male = massive internal unrest and a population crash. forget them.

link

we did this in 1996-97:

"When I was in AustGov we did a niche assessment of what we saw as emerging problems for China.  Some of the stuff I can comment on was as follows:   - cultural problems due to the one baby rule.  families were preferring boys to girls.  the view was that this would lead to follow on problems such as:   lack of work in the regionals meant that families would lose access to a worker to support the parents in local industry or family farms. parents would lose not only a bread winner, but they would also see a disconnection in the traditional role of children caring for their parents. children would need to move from the regionals to the cities to find work - exacerbating the parents problems as it would mean that any savings would be used to fund the childrens search for work in the city a lack of girls/women would lead to social problems as it would also trigger a migration not only for work but also for partners the modernisation of industry would lead to family businesses becoming inefficient and redundant, they would then be at the mercy of new industry that the PLA controlled major industry and development, and this would generate inefficiencies that there was a failure of protection at the legal level to ensure that international companies could not recover or be protected by any decision where the state compulsory acquired industry that they'd developed that the rush to use china as a sweat shop by some manufacturers and industries would see china picking up or acquiring other technologies by stealth (ie dual use problems) that the outer western regions would not realise the same financial benefits as the eastern and coastal regions, and this would lead to further migration as well as discontent at the "haves and have nots" level that there was a singular failure to be able to cope with educating internally at a rate commensurate with development - not enough teachers and professionals existed internally to deal with educating the society that there would be social ructions occurring within 10 years (how prophetic!) in some of the western regions that the economy could not continue on sustaining growth at the declared rates due to failures of infrastructure and the failure to modernise critical infrastructure first that china was estimated to generate 25million new unemployed per year - the rationalisation of industry would mean that a significant number would be long term unemployed and that the balance from the regionals would only get unqualified and "less cerebral" work - and that this could lead to overt discontent that china could not feed her own population, and that this could signify risk for some of her neighbours where they were more abundant in natural resources - and that this would also lead to slippage where the chinese population in thiose regions tried to slip frontiers etc... that china would slowly drip feed mainland "chinese" (ie mainly Han) into Siberia and Tibet to start "blending" the population - and by association, start to neutralise resistance generationally. that there was  a high likelyhood of significant civil disturbance and anti-government activity with each successive year that china did not have enough local resources to fuel the economy  worst case scenario looked at social fragmentation excalating from 2015 on.  Absolute worst case was another civil war by 2025 as it would mean that there would be a high proportion of 2 generations of males who were at social risk   my own view?  this will become a mess if its not managed.  resource hungry economies that can't sustain their own people and that need to distract the population from the degree of internal problem will react in an internationally unacceptable manner to maintain power.   the fact that china wants to present as a state managed capitalist oligarchy is irrelevant if the military is at idealogical odds with the govt, and if the govt does not want to lose its power base.   I wouldn't want to be russian or vietnamese in 15 years time."

Well, why he chose Taipei to learn standard Chinese is beyond my knowledge, but he could have gone to Beijing instead.

Because it was still easier to go to taiwan even under martial law in the 80's than it was to go to the mainland and not be tailed and treated like Richard Sorge.

 

Rudd also received Manadarin upskilling in DFAT - but thats normal.  If he has basic Manadarin then he would have got into DFAT with less grief as the preference is for multi-lingual for general entry, for a diplomatic posting its mandatory.

 

When I was in Taiwan in the mid 80's it was still easier to get around under martial law than on the mainland.  I suspect that Rudd would have known that as well.  Getting a Visa into Taiwan was much much easier than in comparison to the mainland.

I have thought that this may lead to the opposite of what they intended.  If every family choose a male heir, then they would have to import wives.  Resulting in effectively doubling their population. 

Of course as you guys point out, there will be some social upheaval.  The status of the few with Chinese wives, large immigrant population, resentment from surrounding countries who lose a significant number of females.

 

 Zhang Fei, as I understand it you are suggesting that the problem is extremist ideologies of any type, be they nationalistic, class, religious or even racially based.  Well I agree, I know there are real threats out there with what may be benign today being deadly in the past and maybe again in the future.

 

What I was referring to however was an Australian political fear campaign that successfully saw Sir Robert Menzies re-elected in the 50's.  It was quite spectacular by all accounts including the defection of a Soviet Diplomat and "rescue" of his wife who was being forcibly returned to Moscow when police boarded her flight in Darwin. There was also the dirty rotten "commo" union angle as well.  It was the sort of thing John Howard was probably praying for during the last couple of weeks.

 

Communism is in my opinion a lie that leaves its true believers hopeless and depressed which is probably what leads to many or the barbaric excesses that have occurred with in the various socialist utopia's.  In fact it seems that any belief system that claims to deliver a utopian society usually results in death and suffering for all but a privileged few.

 

 

Libs attack Rudd as biased to China