Kevin Rudd is flogging his book and offers to help us understand how he thinks China Sees the World. TEN CONCENTRIC CIRCLES 1. Keep the Leninist Party in power at all costs,; and keep Xi Jin Ping as head of the Party at all costs. This is not as a transition point to some future slow evolution in the direction of a Singaporean-style democracy. That idea, which may have once existed, is no longer applicable.

2. National unity. This is how the Communist Party of China (CPC) maintains its legitimacy as a party. It means that the CPC keeps doing what it’s been doing in Xinjiang and in Tibet; keeps doing what it’s now doing in Hong Kong, and will do what it proposes to do in Taiwan.

3. Grow the economy. Living standards go up. This achieves political legitimacy. It allows the CPC to sustain the basics with the Chinese people by continuing to provide high levels of disposable income. It also means growing the national economic power so as to fund critical national capabilities, most particularly those of the military.

4. Grow the economy in an environmentally sustainable fashion. The Chinese people don’t like dirty air, dirty water, and dirty soil, because they don’t want to eat contaminated food products and die prematurely. It’s a new factor in the hierarchy of needs.

5. Modernize the Chinese military. In Xi Jin Ping’s terms, “to turn it into a modern, world-class military capable of fighting and winning wars.”

6. Forcing China’s neighbouring states into relationships that are benign at a minimum, and optimally compliant from Beijing’s point of view. Both China and Russia have the world’s highest number bordering states, 14 each. The CPC needs to maintain a reasonable cordon sanitaire around China.

7. On the maritime periphery, that is facing to the east, over time, push the United States back in order to accommodate the eventual reunification with Taiwan. That means doing what it can to undermine American alliance structures in Asia, i.e. with Japan, The Republic of Korea and Australia, in particular, but also with Thailand, Indonesia and The Philippines.

8. On the continental periphery, moving west,, use the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to convert Eurasia into a zone of economic opportunity for Beijing. It also means a showing of greater economic development among a series of economies which become themselves increasingly dependent on China. This will extend across Eurasia, into South Asia, into the Middle East, eventually to Eastern Europe, and then to Western Europe.

9. In the rest of the developing world, Africa, Latin America, the rest of Asia, to become the indispensible economic partner of all. This is because the votes of all those countries matter in international organizations, i.e. the United Nations, at the Bretton Woods institutions, and elsewhere. Doing this includes: a) further expansion of markets; b) developing those countries’ infrastructure; and, c) ensuring them as reliable votes for China in the international organizations. 10. Finally, change the nature of the international system itself, doing this by seeking to change its institutional arrangements, its values, and its assumptions. It means doing this in a manner more compatible with China’s world view. We can see that already, here in the Human Rights Council in Geneva, that China systematically, both in Geneva and New York, seeks, with the support of Russia and others, to begin to strip out the human rights provisions of various UN resolutions.