Kevin Rudd has a gambling problem

Tory Maguire, Kevin Rudd’s bravado is actually a bit of a worry

So Kevin Rudd’s been musing about the Chinese and how we might need to be ready to “deploy force” if efforts to integrate the PRC into the rest of the world go horribly wrong...

... it would be good to know what’s fueling Rudd’s “brutal realism” on China, and what exactly he means by everything going wrong when he says: “while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong.” Does the foreign minister seriously think we might need to use military force against China?

Rudd knows that trading with China is based on a gamble. A gamble that China will liberalise into democracy before it gains military supremacy over the USA.

Time Magazine, Mr. World: Kevin Rudd

"I am acutely conscious of what happens when you simply allow things to drift to unrestrained nationalism," Rudd told TIME. "[I want to] avoid long-term strategic drift, avoid the possibility of America drifting away from Asia."

It's the unrestrained nationalism of China that is the long-term worry. The nationalism in Western countries has been moderated by the horror of recent wars and a liberal culture. But what moderating force will hold back China when their military gets big enough to do what they want? Nothing. There are no such reigns on China: no post traumatic war stress, no guilt over imperialism, racism or slavery. And do you think China welcomes a liberal culture that has weakened the West with an identity crisis? Nope, on the contrary, they see homogeneity as a strength. So there will be nothing to stop their nationalism tripping over into empathy-free indulgent imperial opportunism at the point of a gun.

Rudd knows all that. But his diplomatic-superman-complex dreams of smothering China in a wave of transnational love, connections and regional groupthink, so much that it will collapse into liberal democracy. Rudd is a high stakes gambler. He knows it could all go wrong and the worst case scenario arises: that we simply fed the tiger until it broke off its leash.

The diplomatic-superman's brain cannot contemplate the prudent solution i.e. simply stop trading with China. Nope, the diplomatic-superman's brain is chockablock full of the 'age of globalisation of everything' ideology. No room in his brain to contemplate 'regressive' protectionism or trade sanctions. Progressivism means never looking back, no matter where the groupthink of the day may lead.

File under: trade with China is a matter of national security; vote for Donald Trump; and Kevin Rudd has a gambling problem.