Summary of Kevin Rudd's The Avoidable War

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 China has long understood the importance of understanding America, as the Chinese Communist Party believes their survival depends on it. However, America has rarely felt the need to understand China, as their geopolitical footprint is so large.

#2 China’s history is one of periodic incursions by foreign invaders. Chinese official culture has long taken pride in its ability to Sinify invaders within a generation of their arrival through the inherited norms, practices, and procedures of China’s formidable Confucian bureaucratic state.

#3 The Americans were the dominant Christian presence in China after the Chinese government forced out the Europeans in the First Opium War in 1839. American missionaries led the way in the establishment of Western hospitals, colleges, and universities in China.

#4 The American relationship with China changed with the American Revolution. The United States replaced Britain as China’s principal interlocutor with the West. However, American policies towards China were influenced by questions of race.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669383963

IRB Media

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Insights on Kevin Rudd's The Avoidable War

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

China has long understood the importance of understanding America, as the Chinese Communist Party believes their survival depends on it. However, America has rarely felt the need to understand China, as their geopolitical footprint is so large.

#2

China’s history is one of periodic incursions by foreign invaders. Chinese official culture has long taken pride in its ability to Sinify invaders within a generation of their arrival through the inherited norms, practices, and procedures of China’s formidable Confucian bureaucratic state.

#3

The Americans were the dominant Christian presence in China after the Chinese government forced out the Europeans in the First Opium War in 1839. American missionaries led the way in the establishment of Western hospitals, colleges, and universities in China.

#4

The American relationship with China changed with the American Revolution. The United States replaced Britain as China’s principal interlocutor with the West. However, American policies towards China were influenced by questions of race.

#5

The decisions made at the Paris Peace Conference sparked widespread protests in China, and radicalized Chinese politics. Mao Zedong, who had been one of many young Chinese who had been initially inspired by Woodrow Wilson’s commitments to China, now described the United States and the other Western powers as a bunch of robbers.

#6

China was shaped by three great powers during this time: Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Versailles gave away a lot of China’s territory to Japan, and the American government looked to the KMT government as the only possible strategic counterweight against Japan.

#7

The United States was an unreliable ally in China’s war against Japan. It did not offer any military support for the KMT, despite professing sympathy for China. The US extended a series of significant Treasury loans to a cash-strapped KMT government, but did not deploy any military forces to China.

#8

American postwar diplomacy, primarily through the Marshall Mission of 1945 to 1947, tried to reconcile Nationalist and Communist forces in a democratic government supported by an integrated Chinese army under Chiang’s control. But Mao had long seen the United States as no better than the other imperialist powers.

#9

Following the Communist victory in 1949, the next quarter century of the US-China relationship was its most acrimonious. American troops were fighting Chinese troops in Korea, and American concerns about the brutal treatment of American POWs grew.

#10

The opening to China was the result of a rapid deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations over the previous decade, sparked by Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 denunciation of Joseph Stalin after the Soviet leader’s death. Mao saw this as a threat to himself, as well as China’s strategic exposure to the Soviet threat.

#11

The relationship between China and the United States was established in 1979, after years of negotiations. However, the two countries had radically different expectations from the start. Beijing saw the relationship as a transactional one that would enhance China’s national security and prosperity. Washington saw it as transformational, carrying with it the deeper objective of changing the fundamental nature of Communist China itself.

#12

China’s reforms were not political or ideological, but economic. They were a pragmatic move in the tradition of the country’s imperial past. While opposed to the political and economic chaos brought about by Mao’s mass movements, Deng had no interest in any form of fundamental democratic reform.

#13

The relationship between the United States

Reviews for Summary of Kevin Rudd's The Avoidable War

[Omar Fundora · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice summary from a credible source. Managed Competition Strategy with China is the way to go. We need to find the equilibrium point where our interest and China's interest can meet without encroachment on each other.