Book Reviews 155

Title: The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic

Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China
Author: Kevin Rudd
Publisher: Public Affairs, New York, 2022, 432.

T
he strategists and policymakers predict that the 2020s will be “the
decade of living dangerously” due to the unfolding crisis in the
relationship between the United States (US) and China. The former
Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd (2007-2010 and 2013), in his book
“The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and
Xi Jinping’s China” terms it a “decisive decade” in the dynamics of changing
balance of power between China and the US. Kevin Rudd is an admirer of
Chinese classical civilization, economic achievements of the post-Mao era, and
policies for lifting its population out of poverty. His writings simultaneously
show deep affection for the American people. While admiring the US’s unique
culture of innovation, Rudd criticizes its domestic politics over voter
suppression, unrestricted campaign financing, and corruption of the electoral
redistricting system.
The book consists of seventeen chapters. It begins with an introductory
section, “On the Danger of War,” which raises the question: Should the US and
China finds a way to coexist through a managed strategic competition? The
modern bilateral relationship between China and the US is based on common
economic self-interest. The human rights issue is a point of friction in their
relationship. In this context, the author shares his personal experiences and
explains how he raised human rights issues during his official visit to China
while delivering a public lecture in the Chinese language at Peking University.
This book provides a history of mutual distrust between the two big
powers. It explains Thucydides’s Trap and its relevance to the US-China
relationship, the rise of President Xi Jinping, and his views about the United
States. Their political and strategic perceptions fuel the deepening distrust
between Beijing and Washington. The US does not believe in China’s self-
proclaimed “peaceful rise,” while China does not buy Washington’s pretensions
that it has no interest in containing China’s rise. The US occupies a central
position in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategic thinking as the only
country that is capable of fundamentally disrupting China’s national and global
ambitions, including President Xi’s dream of “the great rejuvenation of the
Chinese nation”. The American strategic community believes that armed
conflict or confrontation is inevitable between the US and China unless the
latter changes its strategic direction.
Rudd claims that with the rapid modernization of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA), China’s traditional belief that it is too weak to engage
militarily against the US is fading away. Contemporary China is testing the
limits of the US’s defense commitments to its Asian allies, including Taiwan, the
Philippines, and Japan. The influential leader Xi Jinping — who sits at the apex
of the Chinese political system — has consigned the old Chinese maxim “Hide
156 Journal of Contemporary Studies, Vol. XI, No. 1 Summer 2022

your strength; bide your time; never take the lead” to oblivion. As a result of
changing character of its leadership, China is removing the mask of modesty
and restraint.
The author further argues that President Xi Jinping’s worldview is
based on the following ten concentric circles of interest: (i) The centrality of Xi
and CCP and the politics of staying permanently in power; (ii) Maintaining and
securing national unity; (iii) Ensuring China’s economic prosperity; (iv)
Environmental sustainability; (v) Modernizing the Chinese military to project
power throughout the world; (vi) Managing China’s neighbouring states; (vii)
Maximizing China’s strategic depth in the Pacific; (viii) Projecting China’s
strategic, economic and diplomatic power westward across the Eurasian
continent and the Indian Ocean through Belt and Road Initiative; (ix)
Increasing influence across the developing world; and (x) Changing the global
US-dominated rules-based order. Beijing will seek an international order more
conducive to China’s ideological, political, and economic interests.
Kevin Rudd identifies the following three approaches that China has
followed to change the nature of international order: (i) Growing its support
across the developing world. (ii) Installing China-friendly candidates in
international institutions. And (iii) Creating a network of multilateral
institutions outside the United Nations (UN) and Bretton Woods system.
The US military looked at China as a regional strategic adversary in the
1950s-1960s, a strategic collaborator against the Soviet Union in the 1970s-
1980s, an emerging strategic competitor in the 2000s, and an adversary in the
2020s. Washington formally assesses PLA as a “peer competitor” in the East
Asia region and a “long-term strategic competitor” around the world.
The author has noted the following areas of military competition
between the two great powers: (i) Taiwan (ii) The South China Sea (iii) The
East China Sea (iv) New security threats (Artificial Intelligence, space, and
cyberspace). In the chapter The Decade of Living Dangerously, Keven Rudd
outlines ten potential scenarios based on different hypothetical assumptions
regarding what is likely to happen in the US-China relationship in the future.
One important scenario is presented as “America’s Munich moment,” in which
China takes Taiwan by force amid a nominal US military response.
The Avoidable War encourages policymakers in the two countries to
devise a joint strategic framework, i.e., “managed strategic competition”
between US and China to avoid war. It is difficult but possible. The core
prepositions of “managed strategic competition” outlined by the author are: (i)
China and the US must develop irreducible strategic redlines to avoid
miscalculation; (ii) Both countries should divert the burden of strategic rivalry
into a competition that aims to deter armed conflict; and (iii) Washington and
Beijing should continue to engage in strategic cooperation to achieve their
national and global interests. Kevin Rudd suggests that both great powers
need to consider similar procedures and mechanisms that the Soviet Union and
the US established and followed after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Book Reviews 157

The Avoidable War focuses excessively on President Xi Jinping’s strategic

thinking and core priorities. The book presents him as a “calculated risk taker”
who seeks to fracture US alliances. However, as Rudd has not cited references
in the book, the readers may face difficulties verifying his claims about Chinese
President Xi Jinping and China’s national and global ambitions.

Reviewed by Anwer Ali, Research Officer, Center for International

Strategic Studies Sindh (CISSS), Karachi.