The Alliance | If the US and China go to war, whose side are we on? Kevin Rudd answers

Fear of China and Japan has long defined Australia's foreign policy. Could there be a new way forward?In the third episode of The Alliance, Hamish McDonald and Geraldine Doogue put that question to Kevin Rudd: former prime minister, former foreign minister, and, until recently, Australia's ambassador to the United States.Rudd makes the case for what he calls "ANZUS Plus": not a straight bet on Washington, but a widening web of security arrangements layered on top of the US alliance rather than instead of it. He defends the joint facilities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia as genuinely different from US sovereign bases, arguing Australia retains the right to say no, as it did over Iraq.On China, Rudd draws on the doctorate he completed on Xi Jinping's worldview, arguing Xi has deliberately shifted Chinese politics further left on ideology, further left on economics, and further nationalist on foreign policy and warns against ever underestimating him. He also lays out the numbers behind the region's naval build-up: China's submarine fleet, its expanding surface fleet, and how the US calculates the "pacing challenge" against it.Plus, why Rudd calls Japan's military future 'a work in progress.'Guest: Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister, former foreign minister, former Ambassador to the U.S.Coming up on The Alliance: MP and former military officer Andrew Hastie; and former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.Get in touch:We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts.