Rudd Government - Foreign Relations

Foreign Relations

The Rudd Government attempted to increase Australia's influence internationally. Prime Minister Rudd announced in March 2008 that Australia would seek a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2013-14. Australia last held a seat on the body in 1985-86. A year and a half on from the announcement, the Age newspaper reported that $11 million had been spent campaigning for the seat and had added twenty-seven votes for Australia; the majority of the votes came from small island nations in the south Pacific and six African nations.

The Rudd Government lobbied for the G20 Forum to replace the G7 as the premier forum for global governance and economic management and secured a seat for Australia at the forum.

China relations were of increasing importance to Australia during the period of the Rudd Government. Trade developments including the Gorgon gas project saw major deals between Australia and China. In an April 2008 visit to China, Rudd addressed an audience in mandarin at Beijing University in which he told students that Australia had concerns over human rights issues in Tibet and later repeated the comments to Premier Wen Jiabao. The Chinese Communist Party reacted angrily to the remarks, describing Tibet as " purely an internal affair". The Rudd Government's relations with the Communist Party were further strained by the Stern Hu Affair, in which, following a failure by China to secure the purchase of Australian mining assets, Australian businessman Stern Hu was accused of "stealing state secrets" during trade negotiations on behalf of Australian mining company Rio Tinto, and subsequently received a ten-year jail sentence for paying bribes. The Rudd Government's 2009 Defence Whitepaper nominated the rise of China as representing a potential threat to Asia Pacific security, and during the wikileaks affair, confidential diplomatic cables were released which purported to show that Prime Minister Rudd had warned the United States that the Communist Party was "paranoid" about Taiwan and that the US should be prepared to use force against China if everything goes wrong.

Kevin Rudd's term in office coincided with the final months of the Bush Administration in the United States. After reports in the Australian media that Kevin Rudd had joked with journalists that George W. Bush did not know what the G20 Forum was, the press reported that Rudd received a frosty welcome from US President Bush when he arrived for the White House dinner that opened the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Washington in November 2008. Bush's successor Barack Obama had a warmer relationship with Rudd, telling the Australian media in April 2010 that Rudd was "smart but humble" and the political leader he was closest to on the world stage.