Ambassador Kevin Rudd was appointed Australia’s Ambassador to the U.S. in March 2023. He served as Australia’s twenty-sixth Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Minister for Foreign Affairs, before a second term as Prime Minister in 2013.
Since then, Rudd has resided in the U.S., where he is recognized as a leading analyst of China. In 2015, he became the inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. In 2020, he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Society globally, and in 2022, he founded the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. Rudd started his diplomatic career in 1981 with postings to Beijing and Stockholm.
Rudd has written two books on China relations: “The Avoidable War,” published in 2022, and “On Xi Jinping,” published in 2024, based on his doctoral thesis.
Rudd earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University.