On April 27, a meeting with Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia (2007-2010, 2013, and later Foreign Minister (2010 -2012) was held at the Valdai Discussion Club, with a question and answer session between Mr. Rudd and the audience, moderated by the Chairman of the Board of the Valdai Club Foundation, Andrey Bystritsky.
After an introduction and welcome by Andrey Bystritsky, the question and answer session began. Bystritsky asked Rudd about his view on the future structure of the world, the role of its nation-states, partnerships and emerging centers of power.
"We have a global order with many stresses and challenges. There is a global demand for effective global governance," said Mr. Rudd. Over the last 25 years, there has been an ongoing integration of Asia into the world economy, while the present and future of regional institutions and associations remain an important issue. Eurasia, a heterogeneous region, combines advanced and lagging regional players, which should be considered while building networks of partnerships.
Answering the question who should be the author of China's rules of interaction with Western partners, Kevin Rudd stressed the importance of ASEAN and APEC as promising independent sites.
"East Asia summit was an initiative which grew out of the 10 ASEAN countries themselves. The Kuala Lumpur declaration of 2005 when East-Asian summit was launched proves that”, said Rudd. The fact that the summit idea was not put forward by the big players, such as the US or China, in his opinion, is the key to the successful existence of this forum. Writing the rules, according to Kevin Rudd, should be a joint initiative primarily on security issues. He added that joint military exercises are particularly promising in this regard.
Rudd also stressed the importance of Australia’s economic partnership agreements with China. Their mutual trade amounts to 22% of Australia's total trade turnover. Australia’s other key economic partners in the region, according to Rudd, are Japan and India, the economic giants of Asia.
Bilateral relations between Russia and Australia are now in a state of decline, it should also be improved, he noted. It is necessary to clearly understand the similarities and common problems to begin constructive work.
"That’s why I’ve come here – in order to understand Russia", - Rudd said.
"There must be continuing and full-scale cooperation between the great powers. Then it would be possible to gain stability in the global world order. I am a foreign policy realist. Some say, this is a contradiction of terms. I don’t. It is made up by the theorists. You should be constructive about the things you have in common or problems you have in common. That`s the constructive approach. The easiest thing to do in international relations is to isolate yourself, to close to each other. The more challenging and complex thing is to talk about things. I grew up on a farm in rural Australia. It is better to talk to your neighbors and people from other hill than not to talk", he added.
Commenting on the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Russia, Rudd said that the relations between Russia and Japan have noticeably improved in the 21st century. He added that it would be unwise to assume that a breakthrough will happen as a result of one visit, but the positive trend in the resolution of the Kuril Islands issue, in his opinion, is definitely present.
Speaking of the most promising areas of cooperation between Russia, China and the US, Rudd said: "I think there is a lot that can be done by each country in dealing with common security problems".
At the end of the meeting, Kevin Rudd wished success to Russia’s "pivot to the east" policy and deeper economic integration with Asia.
"The more we actually work together on the economic questions, the easier for us to solve the complicated security problems," he concluded.
Following the meeting, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Asia Society Policy Institute, of which Rudd is President, and the Valdai International Discussion Club.
After the talk, Rudd held a closed meeting with Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development Stanislav Voskresensky.
