SYDNEY — Kevin Rudd has been swept into power after 6 percent of the voters swung to the Australian Labor Party. With domestic issues dominating the contest, the Howard government's unpopular industrial relations policies became the focus of discontent and a central argument for political change.
Rudd becomes prime minister after having cut many of his political teeth on foreign policy issues. Foreign policy looms fairly large in how he will differentiate his government from its predecessor, including enhanced Asian engagement. Rudd knows it will not be easy to promote Australia's interests in stable great power relations at a time when the indexes of power in Asia are fundamentally changing.
The Sydney Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in September revealed much about the prism through which Rudd will view Asia's security. Not so important here is the well publicized fact that he addressed China's Hu Jintao in Mandarin. The more significant point is that, in the English portion of his address to China's president, Rudd spoke of the United States as Australia's "great friend and ally" and China as Australia's "great friend and partner." Getting Australia in the right position to cope with the evolving, and often competitive, relationship between the U.S. and China is Rudd's primary foreign policy objective. Everything else is secondary.