Former prime minister Kevin Rudd will now be “Dr Rudd”.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Speaking toThe Sun-Herald andThe Sunday Agefrom London,Rudd said Xi is closer ideologically to Mao Zedong,the founder of the People’s Republic of China,than his three predecessors.
Rudd – who met Xi a number of times when he was prime minister – said it was thought that,since the period of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s,the ideology of Marxism no longer governed China and that it would continue to open up its economy.
But under Xi’s “Marxist nationalism” the Chinese Communist Party has greater control over all aspects of Chinese society.
“Xi Jinping would seek to see himself somewhere in the centre,” Rudd said. “The reality is if you look carefully at how much Xi Jinping references Mao in his work,as opposed to how little he references Deng,it’s not exactly in the centre between the two. He would lean a little more to Mao than he does to Deng.
“He certainly no longer embraces the Deng Xiaoping mindset of long-term reform.”
Rudd said Xi had moved the economy “more to the Marxist left – a bigger role for SOEs[state-owned enterprises],smaller roles for private firms and... a new emphasis on income redistribution.”
At the same time,Rudd said Xi had also deployed “Chinese nationalism” to move the country’s security and diplomatic policy further to the Right,which is responsible for the emergence of “wolf-warrior” diplomats.