 Ladies and gentlemen, if I can have your attention, I'm fully aware that we haven't had any lack or shortage of discussion today, quite on the contrary. But I think the last session, the last conversation of the evening of day one of the World Policy Conference is really worth sticking around for the next 30 minutes. In essence, pick up from where the last session, from where the last panel left off, namely, talking about China, most specifically a conversation titled China, off of the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. For those who don't know me, my name is Ali Aslan. I'm an international TV presenter and journalist based in Berlin, Germany. I have the great pleasure indeed now to be joined live by none other than the former Prime Minister of Australia and the President of the Asia Society. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kevin Rodz. Kevin, wonderful to have you with us. It goes without saying that we would have loved to have you here with us in Abu Dhabi in person, of course. But we're very happy that you took the time to join us virtually nonetheless because I don't have to tell you, I don't have to tell anyone here in this room. The topic of China couldn't be more timely indeed. So we don't have much time, Kevin. So let's dive right into lots of questions that I want to address. First up, as a journalist, I have to start with the most current theme. Of course, we're seeing the protests against the zero COVID policy in China. Many of the Western media outlets have called them uprisings, but that has gone a step too far, isn't it? Well, thank you, Ali, for this opportunity to speak with all of our friends in Abu Dhabi. Greetings to Terry Mondrial and everyone else at the World Policy Conference. Sorry, I can't join you. But I'm having breakfast in New York, so I'm looking at all those bottles of wine on the table there, so I'm feeling a little bit envious. You're right, the term uprisings is overstated. These are protest movements. And while some of the protestors have called for the fall of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party, by and large the central thrust of these protests have been to get an end to zero COVID. The remarkable thing within an authoritarian system such as China is that the protest has seemed to have succeeded. The previous plan by the Chinese Communist Party, based on my own analysis, was to gradually move towards the removal of the zero COVID lockdown regime over the next six to seven months and to slowly incorporate the Hong Kong model into mainland Chinese practice by about June of next year. However, the protest movement, I think, caught the regime by surprise. The widespread nature of it, spontaneous protests right across Chinese cities, caused, I think, the party to say, we need to act much more quickly on this. People are becoming angry. And add to that the huge impact it's had on the economic data, the effect on consumer confidence, the effect on domestic supply chains, the effect on international supply chains. So what we saw in announcements from the regime in the last couple of days was a formal decision to change course. And there is one thing we should say for the future about this, however, the public health system in China is still not ready for this. That's why they needed another six months. The vaccination rates for old people are still very low. And furthermore, the public health system and its available ICU beds is still inadequate to the task. So I think we're in for a rocky six months as China embraces what the rest of us embraced quite a long time ago. But in our case, most of us with high vaccination rates. In China, with old people, there are no such high vaccination rates. And they are finding it very difficult to catch up. Back to you, Ali. Thank you indeed for putting the protest into perspective. And just to wrap up that particular question and portion, Kevin, how significant are these protests in a sense? What are the long-term effects, if any, of these protests? Because this has certainly sent a signal to the regime, which is now trying to, from what I gather, finding a face-saving solution. Well, protest activity is not uncommon in China. They happen right across the country on a regular basis on different subjects, whether it's on local land-use decision-making controversies or whether it's on local labor rates or industrial conditions in factories. This one, of course, is much more widespread because it affects everybody. What's the long-term implication? I think on this most sensitive issue, which is public health and how it affects old people. Xi Jinping and the system will be paying acute attention as to the implementation of this new regime of non-zero COVID. As I said before, we'll be particularly politically reactive the emergence of bad economic news or bad public health data in terms of the loss of old people in large numbers. Of course, the regime in the past has tended to suppress accurate data on such deaths. But nonetheless, you've got old people dying in large numbers around the country. It'll find its way into social media in the same way that this protest movement found its way into social media as well. So as I said, the next six months are still going to be difficult. It's always a great opportunity to speak to one of the most renowned China experts out there. But particularly today, we're of course meeting in Dubai, the World Policy Conference is meeting in Dubai just around the same time when Xi Jinping is meeting Gulf Arab leaders today in Riyadh. That's quite a significant development, isn't it, Kevin? How do you rate this visit? What do you expect the outcome to be? Well, it is a significant visit because China has embarked over the last five to seven years on an advanced economic diplomacy towards the Gulf States in particular. There is one background point, however, which is that China has a much longer standing relationship with Iran. This goes back to the 1980s, where China has been supplying the Iranians with military equipment right back to the time of the Iran-Iraq war. And so this is a long-standing relationship, which will also be in the back of the mind of Gulf leaders from Saudi, from the Emirates, and from elsewhere as they sit down with Xi Jinping. But they'll also be asking themselves this question. If the Iranians in the future threaten the national security of the Emirates or of the Saudis as they've done in the past, what will China then do? Second point I think they'll bear in mind is that there has been a dramatic cooling on the relationship between the Kingdom in particular and the Americans. There are multiple reasons for that, which many in the room will be familiar with. But this has obviously created new frictions with Washington. A third element I think is the fact that the Americans have boasted for some time that they had become effectively self-reliant in hydrocarbons. And that is basically a way of saying, of their fracking revolution, that they're no longer needed oil from either the Kingdom or from the Emirates or from the other Gulf states in the order of magnitude that they needed in the past. And China has stepped into that market. And so as we know in geopolitics, geopolitics is often not far behind geopolitical reality. And so there's big shift from the United States, which was previously the big buyer of Saudi and Gulf oil. But China now taking that place I think is an underpinning dynamic together with the cooling in Saudi-U.S. relations. China and Saudi Arabia set to sign a strategic partnership agreement during that visit. A visit that, as you pointed out, comes at a time when Saudi-U.S. relations are cooling off. This is traditionally the sphere of influence, if you will, of Washington more than anything else. But it'll be interesting to see the development. And speaking of Washington, Kevin, I wonder if I could get your takeaway from the most recent meeting between Xi Jinping and President Biden at the G20 Bali Summit. Anything of substance come out of this meeting? I think it was a significant meeting for the following reasons. It's the first time since Biden became president that these two have sat down face to face, largely because of COVID, but other factors as well. And that's not insignificant, even though these two leaders know each other very well. They spent a huge amount of time with each other when Joe Biden was vice president. Going back to the time, in fact, much earlier in the first decade of the current century, when Xi Jinping was vice president of his own country. So they know each other very well. But this was the first face-to-face meeting since Xi Jinping had become president. On the substance of it, what I detect from the meeting is a decision on both the American's part and the Chinese part to take the overall temperature of the relationship down a few notches. And that is both sides were concerned that the relationship was falling through the floor. And what I see in the language in the respective readouts, both from Washington and Beijing, is a decision to put a new floor underneath the relationship. The Americans now speak in terms of managed competition, the need for strategic guardrails, the need to observe strategic red lines. The Chinese in their readout referred to the need for new protections to the relationship, the need for a new security safety net beneath the relationship. So what do I interpret from all that? It doesn't solve everything, but it's a resolution not to allow the relationship to collapse completely. And there's a reason for that, which is neither can afford to have crisis conflict and war by accident at this stage over Taiwan. And the reason is for that is that neither side at this stage is confident that they would win. So none of them want to end up in a shooting match right now. Indeed, at least the temperature has been cooled down for the time being, as you pointed out, but you also state in your book, of course, the avoidable war, the dangers of a catastrophic conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China. In that book, interestingly enough, you say the next five years are the most critical years ahead of us that will determine whether we're going to see an armed conflict between the US and China, which obviously has the potential to drag the rest of the world down with it. Why the next five years, Kevin? What are we looking at here? Well, firstly, Xi Jinping, as your audience will know, has just secured his own reappointment as Party General Secretary for another five years at the 20th Party Congress just concluded. And Xi Jinping wants to secure Taiwan's return while he is in China's top position. That does not necessarily mean the next five years, because my judgment is that Xi Jinping will wish to remain leader of China well into the 2030s as well. But the reason I emphasise the next five years is as follows, and there are two factors here. One, whether the two sides can agree on a series of management principles and protocols and mechanisms to prevent crisis conflict and war by accident over the next five years, and that's what we've just been talking about as far as the Biden-Shi summit in Bali was concerned. But the second reason why the next five years are so important is for the medium to long term. That is, will the Americans be able to seize the opportunity, both themselves and their allies in Asia and in Europe, together with the Taiwanese themselves, mindful of what the Ukrainians have done on the ground to build deterrence in a manner which causes China, by the time you hit the late 20s and early 30s, to still conclude it's too risky to undertake a war by design. That is, not a war by accident, but a war by design to secure its political objectives in Taiwan. That's why I regard the next five years as critical in what I also call as the decade of living dangerously, which I think it is as well. So Taiwan obviously is a spot to look out for and a war that everybody in the world wants to avoid. One war, unfortunately, that could not be avoided, which started obviously in February, is the war in Ukraine. And the Chinese regime clearly made its stance known from the beginning in a sense that it threw its support to Vladimir Putin. Any watering down in that regard now that we're nearly closing in on the first year of the war, did the meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping resolve anything on that front? Not in particular, but I think to answer your question in its earlier part, there has been, quote, a watering down, unquote, of China's position of resolute support for the Russians, which was underscored in their agreement of the 4th of February this year, only two weeks before the Russian invasion itself. And that 4th February agreement was a new strategic alliance, quote, without limitations, unquote, where Xi Jinping, and certainly in Putin's perception, extended to him a carte blanche for the future. Well, I think the Chinese looked at what the Russians then did in Ukraine and then reached a conclusion that the Russians were neither militarily, financially, or economically prepared to the invasion, which they then undertook on the 24th of February. And the rest, as they say, is history. In the period since then, Ali, what we've seen is at least two occasions in which the Chinese have distanced themselves publicly from Vladimir Putin. One was at a meeting in Central Asia where Xi Jinping and the Chinese required the Russians under Putin to say that, quote, he looked forward to hearing China's questions and concerns over Ukraine, unquote. Well, Vladimir Putin, the one that I know, never looks forward to hearing other people's questions and concerns over Ukraine. That's something the Chinese got him to do. But the second and most important development came on the back of Olaf Schulz's visit to Beijing recently, when, of course, we saw Xi Jinping state bluntly that there was no occasion on which there could be nuclear war or the use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the Eurasian continent. Now, Eurasia includes Ukraine. And that was a clear rebuff to Vladimir Putin's nuclear weapons sabre-rattling over the previous months. But the Chinese are very mindful of the damage which has been done to their reputation around the world, but in particular in Europe over their posture on Ukraine. And so if you're a European, buckle, fasten your seat belts, buckle up, and get ready for the biggest Chinese charm offensive you've seen in decades, it's about to come very soon. As China seeks to patch up the damage which they've done, particularly in European capitals over Ukraine. Whether they'll succeed or not is a separate question. That'll be indeed very interesting to see. Kevin, this talk is titled China After the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. I know you're fluent in Mandarin and you probably have read the entire document that led to a third, unprecedented third term of Xi Jinping solidifying and consolidating his power and reign over China. The notion that reform will go hand in hand with opening, that is a notion that we can probably put to rest for the time being as far as China is concerned, no? Yeah, it's a, you're right. I have read the whole document and unfortunately I have read it all in Chinese. It's what I describe as a one and a half bottle of Johnny Walker exercise over a couple of days. And I only recommend it to those in the audience if they've got their own bottle of single malt handy. But you work your way through the ideological text because the reason we do this is not because we have a fetish. The reason we do this is because in a Marxist-Leninist system, what the general secretary of the party says in a formal work report to the party congress once in every five years, it actually matters. It sets up the ideological parameters for the future, both on domestic politics and policy, the economy and on foreign security policy as well. So we take it seriously. I think what emerges overall from this document is, one, a re-emphasis on the centrality of Marxist-Leninist ideology. It's quite clear that this is much more of an animating principle in Xi Jinping's worldview than was the case in his three most recent predecessors, including Jiang Zemin, who just passed away. Number two, what we see also is from the party congress report as a reassertion of the absolute political centrality of Xi Jinping himself as China's paramount leader, rather than the principles of collective leadership, which Deng Xiaoping had spent decades putting in place after the Cultural Revolution. Certainly on the economy, you see a reassertion of the power and the role of the party in the state over the economy, rather than the market, state-owned enterprises, rather than the private sector, new doctrines of common prosperity, rather than individual wealth accumulation without any conditions attached. As what I see as a general push by Xi Jinping to take economic policy more to the Marxist left, then finally on foreign security policy, a new set of guidances to the party, basically saying that China can no longer assume that its international strategic environment is benign, that in fact there are a whole bunch of new risks out there, and that the PLA should itself get ready in a medium to long term for war. And so therefore on the foreign security policy front, it's quite a sober document to read as well. So clearly a watershed moment in Chinese history that we're witnessing here all together with a somewhat uncertain outcome for the time being.