Rudd leads Labor to election win - how this will affect Sino-Australia relation

[gpit]

Australia's Rudd leads Labor to election win

Australia's Rudd leads Labor to election win | U.S. | Reuters

Sat Nov 24, 2007 8:46am EST

By Rob Taylor

BRISBANE (Reuters) - Australia's Labor leader Kevin Rudd, a Mandarin speaking former diplomat, swept into power at national elections on Saturday on a wave of support for generational change, ending 11 years of conservative rule.

"Today Australia has looked to the future," Rudd, flanked by his wife Therese and family, told jubilant supporters. "I will be a prime minister for all Australians."

The surge to Labor left conservative Prime Minister John Howard struggling to win even his own parliamentary seat, which he has held since 1974, putting him in danger of becoming the first prime minister since 1929 to lose his constituency.

Rudd, 50, presented himself as a new generation leader by promising to pull Australian combat troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, further isolating Washington on both issues.

Rudd is expected to forge closer ties with China and other Asian nations and has said he wants a more independent voice in foreign policy, but on Saturday again promised Australia would retain its close alliance with the United States.

His message of new leadership attracted a swing of more than five percent across the nation from the previous election, locking in only the sixth change of government since World War Two.

"We've all got goose bumps that finally we might have a leader who is passionate about fairness in this country," Celeste Giese, 39, told Reuters at Rudd's victory party. "Finally, after 11 years, it's happening," she said.

The election was fought mainly on domestic issues, with Labor cashing in on anger at workplace laws and rising interest rates which put home owners under financial pressure at a time when Australia's economy is booming.

During the campaign, Rudd said one of his first actions would be to lead his country's delegation to December's international climate talks in Bali, emphasizing that Australia hopes to take a lead role in efforts to combat global warming.

ELEVEN YEARS IN POWER

Howard, who had won four consecutive elections and held power for 11 years, conceded his government had lost power in front of a crowd of supporters in Sydney late on Saturday, saying he took full personal responsibility for the defeat.

"This is a great democracy and I want to wish Mr. Rudd well," Howard said. "We bequeath to him a nation that is stronger and prouder and more prosperous than it was 11-1/2 years ago."

Election analyst Antony Green predicted Labor would win more than 80 seats in the 150-seat parliament, giving it a clear majority in its own right for the first time since it lost power to Howard in 1996.

The result will mean Labor is in power nationally and in all of Australia's six states and two territories, with the lord mayor of the northern city of Brisbane now the senior ranking elected official in Howard's Liberal Party.

Howard had won four consecutive elections and was Australia's second-longest serving prime minister behind Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies. He had trailed in opinion polls all year.

A staunch U.S. ally committed to keeping Australian troops in Iraq, he offered voters income tax cuts, but few new policies, instead highlighting his strong economic record and attacking Labor's links to the trade union movement.

With 73 percent of the vote counted in Howard's seat of Bennelong, election officials put him just behind Labor's high-profile rookie candidate, former national television political journalist, Maxine McKew.

"This has been an amazing night, a wonderful night for Labor, a fabulous, I hope transforming, moment for the country," McKew told cheering supporters, adding it might be weeks before a winner is declared.

At a sombre Liberal Party headquarters, party faithful were putting a brave face on the defeat.

"I just hope the public now gives John Howard some kudos for what he's done over the years," said David Bennett, a member of the Young Liberals, the youth wing of the Liberal Party.

(Additional reporting by Michael Perry, Jim Thornhill and James Grubel in Sydney)

 

[gpit]

Kevin Rudd
Carmel Egan
December 3, 2006

■ A virgo, Kevin Rudd was born on September 21, 1957, in Queensland.

■ The youngest of four children, he spent his childhood on a dairy farm at Eumundi, on the Sunshine Coast hinterland behind Noosa Heads.

■ Six weeks after a treatment for injuries received in a car accident, Bert - Kevin's father - died from a septicemia infection contracted in hospital. Rudd was 11. His mother Margaret was evicted from the farm and the family, while searching for a home, slept in a car before finding temporary accommodation.

■ School began at Eumundi Primary, but after his father's death Rudd spent two years boarding at the Marist Brothers College in Ashgrove, Brisbane. He later went to Nambour High School.

■ Fellow federal Labor MP Wayne Swan was two years ahead of Rudd at Nambour High and one of the cool kids and school captain. Rudd graduated as dux of the school in 1974. They are not friends.

■ A love affair with all things Chinese started at the age of 10 when his mother gave him a book on ancient civilisations. After high school Rudd hitch-hiked down the east coast and eventually reached Canberra where he enrolled at Australian National University and studied Chinese language and history. He is fluent in Mandarin and was posted to Beijing as a junior diplomat during his time with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the mid-1980s.

■ Rudd is Catholic, his entrepreneurial wife Therese Rein is Anglican. He is chairman of the ALP's Caucus Committee on Faith, Values and Politics.

■ The couple has three children - Jessica, Nicholas and Marcus.

■ He became chief of staff to Queensland opposition leader Wayne Goss in 1988 and helped guide the ALP to government after decades in the wilderness during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years.

■ He earned his first political nickname, Dr Death, after cutting back and restructuring the Queensland public service when head of Wayne Goss' Office of Cabinet.

■ His first tilt at federal politics failed when he lost a bid for the Brisbane seat of Griffith in the 1996 election that wiped out Paul Keating.

■ Between elections he ran his own business as a Chinese consultant for Australian firms.

....

Kevin Rudd - National - theage.com.au


PS: According to other reports, Mr. Rudd's son-in-law (should be Jessica's husband) is from Taiwan. His elder son (should be Nicholas) is currently studying in Fudan University, Shanghai, China. His younger son, a high school student, is also studying Chinese.

 

[gpit]

I would probably try to expect that China-Australia relationship will be further broadened and deepened due to him being positively influenced by Chinese, also due to economical interests binding the two countries.

Meanwhile it is not realistic to predict any deterioration of US-Australia relationship, exception some cooling down on international affairs, such as Australia's pull-out of Iraq.

 

[jantobanto]

i welcome that and hope he will work for the peace??? and the beterment of the world in gen. good luck.

 

[fatman17]

another staunch supporter of bush and WoT gone down the drain-pipe. first blair and now howard. dare i say more......

 

[gpit]

It would be interesting to see how the "Quadrilateral Initiative" of the US, Japan, India and Australia, or "democratic coalition" meant to contain rising Chinese power, will eventually evolve.

 

[Flintlock]

It would be interesting to see how the "Quadrilateral Initiative" of the US, Japan, India and Australia, or "democratic coalition" meant to contain rising Chinese power, will eventually evolve.

This democratic coalition thingy is hardly a formal agreement to become allies. If anything, its just a preliminary step, like testing the waters with your toe.

Also, if the new Aussie PM has more brains than Bush, he won't let foreign policy be affected by his hobbies!!

 

[gpit]

In contrast to developing countries, many politicians in developed countries take politics as a hobby. Many of them are successful entrepreneurs, scholars, etc. They don't have to live on playing politics.

Regardless of that, see what Mr Rudd is expected:


Rudd Changes the Aussie Guard - Council on Foreign Relations
...
The most notable foreign policy change under Rudd may be on the environment. He has promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. This, as New York Times notes, will further isolate the United States, leaving it as the only industrialized country not to have signed on to Kyoto. A Rudd government may also bring a change in tone within Australia's Asia-Pacific neighborhood. The Economist says his plans to attend a United Nations conference on climate change in Bali in early December may be a sign that he means to make changes in Australia's relations with its neighbors. This could include a move away from the muscular diplomacy that led to an Australia-India defense agreement last summer. Australia has also deployed troops for peacekeeping in Papua New Guinea in 1998, to East Timor in 1999 and 2006, as well as a force in the Solomon Islands that aims to quell the violence that erupted after national elections in April 2006. Craig Snyder, director of the international relations postgraduate studies program at Deakin University in Melbourne, says “[f]or the Australian people, the more 'humanitarian' the mission, the greater the level of support is given.”

Australia's election | His own boss | Economist.com
...

A China expert who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Mr Rudd is expected to seek closer ties within the Asia-Pacific region. In his campaign he said that the rise of China and India were among the biggest challenges facing Australia, and said he wanted the country “once again” to have its own voice in world affairs. Hugh White, a fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think-tank, says that the new prime minister is “conscious of the way the rise of China is going to challenge Australia’s traditional foreign-policy delineations.” He cites Mr Rudd’s opposition to a joint security declaration that Mr Howard struck with Japan this year. Although this was not a formal military treaty, Mr Rudd worried that it was a possible source of conflict in relations with China, now Australia’s biggest trading partner.

...

 

[Black Stone]

It is clear that Rudd is moving away from the US. With the recall of the AUS troops and the signing of the Kyoto protocol.

It would be interesting to see how future US-AUS relations turns out.

 

[gpit]

Fulfilling one of his election promises, Mr. Rudd has signed Kyoto Protocol.

Rudd takes Australia inside Kyoto
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Rudd takes Australia inside Kyoto

Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd has been sworn in as prime minister, following a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last week.

Immediately after the ceremony, he signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, reversing the previous administration's policy.

...

 

[gpit]

PM under China's spell

By Piers Akerman

March 16, 2008 12:00am

IN an attempt to divert attention from its lack of realistic policy initiatives, the Rudd government recently attacked National Party MP Mark Vaile and Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey for absenting themselves from Parliament and picking up a few bucks in the process.

Vaile went overseas at his own expense to help an Australian company develop markets in the Middle East; Wilson went on a lecture cruise.

There is zero evidence that either broke any parliamentary rules or was unduly influenced by their experiences.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, however, has been in and out of China - courtesy of a number of Chinese organisations - ever since he was elected to Parliament, and has earned more than $100,000 for his efforts.

Treasurer Wayne Swan and Agriculture Minister Tony Burke also had their travel to China bankrolled by a Chinese company while in Opposition.

Maxine McKew, the former ABC star who became Labor's iconic Bennelong candidate, was also greatly assisted by the Chinese during her campaign.

Chinese consul Chen Hao Qi attended an open day at the Chinese Government-supported Feng-Hua, at which Rudd's daughter Jessica and her husband, Albert Tse, made a celebrity appearance.

Mandarin-speaking Rudd's obsession with China is well known, and the Chinese press fondly refers to him as Lu Kewen.

What has largely gone under the radar, however, is the extent to which Rudd has shifted Australian policy in favour of China at the expense of India.

As the Chinese news agency Xinhua wrote on February 5, Australia pulled out of joint strategic dialogues with the US, Japan and India after Foreign Minister Stephen Smith met Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Canberra.

"One of the things that caused China concern last year was a meeting of that strategic dialogue,'' Smith said.

But the decision to bolster a relationship with the greatest authoritarian power in the world, a nation that has little respect for human rights such as freedom of speech, and that still bans private citizens from receiving satellite television broadcasts and monitors Internet exchanges, at the expense of a long-standing friendship with India - a nation that shares with Australia a common language and a history of common law - has deeply upset the Indian Government.

Dr Bhartendu Kumar Singh, a distinguished commentator with the Indian Defence Accounts Service, says the decision to pull out of the quadrilateral initiative demonstrates Australia's "diplomatic immaturity''.

Former prime minister John Howard was pressed by Chinese president Hu Jintao to reject the arrangement, according to Dr Singh, but "the Howard government was pragmatic enough to resist China's demands''.

Rudd, it appears, was not - and he also reversed the Howard government's decision to sell uranium to India.

On February 22, he told the ABC his view was "how to unfold a future relationship with China ... in a whole range of areas, and become genuine partners with China in the course of the 21st century ... us working with China ... working with the Chinese on some of our common challenges with the wider Asia-Pacific region, including the south Pacific.''

Rudd belatedly attempted to justify the decision to drop India from the quadrilateral arrangement by saying he didn't think "our friends in New Delhi particularly welcome that (the arrangement) as well''.

But a number of prominent and influential Indians immediately expressed the view that China made a suggestion and Australia caved in to its demands to dump the strategic dialogue with India, the US and Japan.

"This means China is able to flex its muscles by using soft power to break coalitions,'' Abanti Bhattacharya, an associate fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, said.

"It's an indication of China's crafty policy of embedding power concepts in its soft power statesmanship ... it's a clear sign Australia and China are cosying up.

"(Under Kevin Rudd) it's more attractive for Australia to align with China than with India.''

Another expert, retired major-general Ashok Mehta, agreed with this assessment.

"This is a complete U-turn,'' he said. "It's a completely maverick move. They (Australia) won't give us uranium, and now we are out of the dialogue.''

According to Mehta, bilateral ties, particularly in the defence sphere, "will certainly not be as they were (with the previous government). That's what happens when China raises its eyebrows.''

Writing in The Asian Age, foreign affairs expert Brahma Chellaney said Rudd had no qualms about selling uranium to China but would not export to India, even though the latter is accepting what the former will not brook: stringent, internationally verifiable safeguards against diversion of material to weapons use.

"Whereas in China the civilian and military nuclear programs overlap, India has, under the nuclear deal with the US, announced a watertight segregation of its civil and military parts.

"For Washington, the deal indeed has been a means to try and build, in the words of Australian analyst Robert Ayson, 'a de facto NPT around India,' with the Howard government conditioning exports to New Delhi's implementation of the various elements of the Indo-US deal.

"By contrast, exports to China will carry 'zero real controls', as The Australian Financial Review put it.

"Yet the Rudd government has reversed policy on India while displaying the same zealousness as its predecessor to sell uranium ore to China.

"Canberra has turned a blind eye to the fact that, in contrast to New Delhi's squeaky-clean record in not proliferating nuclear technology to other states, Beijing has long played proliferation as a strategic card, with US intelligence identifying it as the 'most significant supplier' of items and technology related to weapons of mass destruction.''

As the various ongoing funding scandals reveal, Labor has debts everywhere.

Kevin Rudd should tell us what sort of a debt he thinks we owe China, and why we are neglecting a democratic friend to pander to a totalitarian state.

PM under China's spell | The Daily Telegraph