To deal with China, Australia should learn from Japan and ‘put away the megaphone’: former PM Kevin Rudd

Rudd, prime minister twice between 2007 and 2013, says Tokyo has maintained a relationship with Beijing despite territorial disputes and its US alliance

As Australia and China’s relationship deteriorates, he says both countries can work through their issues by resorting to ‘old-fashioned diplomacy’

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Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd views Tokyo’s ability to deal with Beijing as particularly instructive for Canberra. Photo: EPA

Published: 6:00am, 2 Dec 2020Updated: 12:14pm, 2 Dec 2020

“Put away the megaphone” and take a leaf out of Japan’s diplomatic playbook – that was former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s advice to Canberra as the country’s relationship with China continues to deteriorate to lows unseen since ties were formalised five decades ago.

Speaking at the China Conference organised by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, Rudd said he viewed Tokyo’s ability to deal with Beijing as particularly instructive because of the similarities between the East Asian giant and Australia.

“Japan’s a close ally of the United States like Australia, Japan has a huge economic relationship with China like Australia, Japan is a liberal democracy like Australia, and Japan – unlike Australia – has an ongoing territorial dispute with China in the East China Sea over the [Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands],” Rudd said.

“Notwithstanding all of the above, I noticed that both [Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga, respectively the former and current prime minister of Japan], at least in the last several years, have been able to manage a relationship with Beijing, which has not been the subject of a rolling, as it were, crisis.”

Rudd, a diplomat-turned-politician who was prime minister twice between 2007 and 2013 and also served a two-year stint as foreign minister, said he “could not recall a period [of Australia-China ties] like they have at the present”.

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd said Beijing will face a reimagining of relations with Japan, the US and others. Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

He suggested that a “restabilisation” of ties between the US and China after President-elect Joe Biden takes office could bring about some positive change to the current state of affairs.