With all due respect to Rudd’s scholarship, nowhere in that article is there a clear definition/example of what is meant by “guardrails”. But it doesn’t really matter because the CCP would sooner or later ignore any “guardrails “ that were agreed upon. CCP will never see strategic deception as futile because strategic deception is the core of Chinese relations with the outside world. We were told that the Ukrainian aircraft carrier was to be a floating casino (or was it a museum?). What did it end up becoming? Xi who must be obeyed looked Obama in the eye and said that the islands in the south sea would not be militarized. What happened? And what about the Hong Kong Basic Law which the Chinese signed. Seemed like a great “guardrail “ to me. It took the Chinese twenty years to gut it. 老共說話不算話， 就是這麽簡單. It’s that simple. What surprises me is that somebody like Kevin Rudd, who has studied the Chinese and their language for more than forty years, continues to write articles suggesting appeasement. This after his own prime minister, upon receiving the Chinese list of measures to be taken to improve Chinese Australian relations, said publicly, “Australians do not like to be bullied.” Or perhaps Mr. Rudd’s ties with China have become so lucrative that he can no longer be objective. He refers to areas where there is “space for cooperation”; 1. climate change… the Chinese continue to burn huge amounts of coal and are building a coal fired power plant in Pakistan; 2 global health…..the Chinese refuse to import the western mRNA vaccine; 3. global financial stability…..China is awash in debt and Chinese loans have driven Sri Lanka into bankruptcy and Laos is teetering ; 4. nuclear disarmament…… China continues to increase its nuclear arsenal apace and has rejected talks. Finally, while it may be true that WWI did not turn out so well, the aftermath of WWII did not turn out so badly (yes, the US made mistakes) and few countries have benefited more from the post WWII world order than China.