Rudd has to balance his future political ambitions (either in strategy in the US, representation in Australia, or even at the UN) with his access and friendship

Rudd has to balance his future political ambitions (either in strategy in the US, representation in Australia, or even at the UN) with his access and friendship with China. For the last few years he's hedged on the side of the US' "China threat" narrative, while still making somewhat unbiased takes about China from his deep experience there. I'm part way through this and I think it makes a lot of valid points, and provides high information content on an (as he says) unappreciated aspect (in the West, anyway) of China's rule. Ironically enough, Rudd's exploration of China's ruling ideology, is Rudd's least ideological piece of writing in a long time. In fact, in Rudd's calculus, he's probably permitted to write this more accurate piece for FA after securing a wider distribution of his more US-placating piece in SCMP the day before titled (essentially): "Why China must stop Russia from nuking Ukraine" Most of all Rudd is an astute political beast, sniffing the coming winds and aligning himself in their direction, careful never to piss off the wrong people, whoever they might be, at any given time. While Rudd has incredible aptitude at seeing, understanding and describing things clearly, everything he does say is modulated by his ambitions and his sensitivity of "reading the room". If you can be aware of that distortion in this piece, and read it anyway, you'll get even more from it. If you care about China, or its interaction with the world, this is an important longread. It's not a real substitute, but if you want the TL;DR version saying (roughly) the same thing, then you'll be helped with this: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3196273/xi-jinping-and-revenge-ultra-leftists https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3196273/xi-jinp...