As for Australia's relations with China, its largest trading partner, Rudd recalled that when he first went to work in China 30 years ago, "China didn't make the top 20 trading partners of Australia. So things have changed and are heading into a good direction."

The former Australian ambassador to China expressed his concern that a Free Trade Agreement talk between Australia and China was not progressing fast enough.

"Our friends in China are very concerned that the Australian economy is a bit large to fully integrate into a free trade agreement across all sectors of the economy. China is particularly concerned about the impact on Chinese agriculture if there is free trade in agriculture. The Chinese are also concerned about unfettered Australian access to the Chinese services industries."

"There are reservations on both sides. But my own view is that with political will, we can produce an outcome," he said.

"I see a lot of 'win, win' in this, but we've also got a bit of mutual compromise in order to bring about a result," he added.

Rudd also dismissed concerns about Australia putting obstacles to Chinese investment in Australian agriculture.

"Australia's foreign investment policy is totally nondiscriminatory. We look at each significant investment on it's merits and it's very rare that we will take a national interest argument to say that an investment should be changed or reduced or canceled. More than 95 percent of China's investment applications to the Foreign Investment Review Board have been accepted and this is a very high rate," he said.

Rudd is also proud of Australia's China literacy, calling it one of the highest in western countries, thanks to the country's investment in this area over 40 years.