Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has said Chinese President Xi Jinping's tour of the United States is a perfect forum to improve the two nations' relationship. [Special coverage]
Writing exclusively for The Guardian Australia's website on Thursday, Rudd said that despite a recent rocky relationship, it was in both China's and the United States' best interests to " preserve the peace", saying that mutual interests "far outweigh" the frustrations.
Rudd, a leading Australian expert on China, said recent tensions could be resolved when President Xi visits Washington this week, writing that if the two can bury the hatchet focusing on those mutual interests, the two countries could deliver stability in the pacific region.
"What these two great powers share is a maximum desire for stability and predictability," Rudd wrote on Thursday.
"Only (with stability and predictability) can their respective global interests be advanced. Anyone who doubts this need only take a close look at what both Beijing and Washington really think about Islamic State. Or Iran. Or the future of the North Korea nuclear weapons program. And now even climate change," he wrote.
Rudd said, as the two biggest economies in the world, both the United States and China would only continue to benefit if leaders were able to see "eye to eye" on a number of pressing issues.
He wrote that despite the two countries' difference over such issues as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Trans Pacific Partnership, they have a number of complimentary interests, which may be impaired by a strained relationship.
"The mutual economic interests they share (in trade, investment and in financial markets) that would be lost as a consequence of any fundamental strategic implosion of the relationship still far outweigh the economic frustrations they have with each other," Rudd wrote in The Guardian Australia.
"The two sides must agree on a new common strategic narrative to govern the future of their relationship."
"Both their publics need an organizing principle that is able to preserve long-term strategic stability."
Rudd, also a foreign minister under Julia Gillard's leadership, studied Asian Studies at Australia National University, and majored in Chinese Language and Chinese History. He is widely regarded as one of Australia's most respected China experts.
