President Asia Society Policy Institute and former Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd, born in 1957, studied Chinese history and sinology at the Australian National University in Canberra. He joined the Australian Labor Party as early as 1972. He began his professional career as a diplomat in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981. He worked at the embassies in Stockholm and Beijing. In 1986 he returned to Canberra and was promoted to Counsellor in the Australian Diplomatic Service in 1988. He was Australian Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and again in 2013, and Foreign Minister in Prime Minister Gillard's Cabinet from 2010 to 2012. During his terms, he advocated for the expansion of the East Asia Summit to include the United States and Russia. He doubled Australia's foreign aid budget, legislated for new energy targets, championed better education, Indigenous Australians and health system reform and investment. Since January 2015, he has been president of the newly founded Asia Society Policy Institute.
Wednesday, 05. October 2016, 18:30 – 20:00 h
At the University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich, KOL-G-201 (Aula)
As Asia emerges as a global center of economic gravity, as a theater for increasing security tensions, and as a source of decisive influence in global environmental change, the global order is being reshaped. The question that today’s policymakers must answer is whether the post-1945 system of international institutions can be reformed to accommodate Asia’s rise. The deftness with which policymakers inside and outside of the region are able to manage this structural transition will fundamentally affect the security of future generations. How would such a new global order look like, and what can Europe – and Switzerland – do to help establish it?