The institute is the policy arm of the Asia Society, created by John Rockefeller III to build trust between the US and Asia after World War II. Mr Rudd engaged in a question and answer session with Charlie Rose, one of America's most esteemed interviewers, on the future of US-China relations.

He told an audience of hundreds that he was optimistic that considered policy-making by both sides could see the two nations avoid conflict as China continued its rise.

Although China's military growth had outpaced the United States over the past 25 years – and was intensifying – Mr Rudd said western observers should bear in mind that China had no history of colonial expansion. Rather, he said China's President Xi Jinping was focused on protecting the ruling Communist Party, expanding China's role in regional affairs commensurate to the nation's growing economic power, and building a military that could fight and defeat an enemy with a powerful and sophisticated army on or near its borders.

However, this ambition could include the eventual reunification with Taiwan, which in turn necessitated building a military capable of facing down and defeating a US naval threat, he said.

He also warned that Western observers should understand that, unlike many developing nations,China did not accept the system of international rules and conventions developed largely by the West in the wake of World War II and wanted to see many of them reformed.

Western observers should not expect that as capitalism matures in China, democracy would rise with it. Mr Xi and the party were wedded to state capitalism, he said.

China's leadership was convinced that the US and its western allies were seeking to contain China and had been behind or had contributed to the so-called "colour revolutions" in the Balkans and Middle East.

In order to avoid conflict the two nations would need to embrace a policy of what Mr Rudd called "constructive realism".

This would demand that both sides were clear about issues they did believe they could reconcile, and build mechanisms to manage those disagreements, and then find areas of bilateral agreement where their collaboration could benefit both sides and the global order.

He suggested  the recent climate change agreement between Mr Xi and  President Barack Obama was evidence that this could work. China and the US, with input from India, would effectively decide between them whether or not the upcoming Paris climate talks will succeed or fail, he said.

Finally, when trust was built between the two nations through focusing on these areas of shared interest – and building institutions to support them – the two nations might begin work on those areas of unreconciled dispute.

Without deliberate, positive steps like this, Mr Rudd said, the two nations could begin a slow, incremental shift towards conflict.

"My sense is that there is now a working level of respect between the two presidents, which for the remaining two years of Obama's term I hope we can turn into something more."

For the past 12 months Mr Rudd has been focused on these issues as a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School, and he is also a "distinguished statesman" at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a leading US "think tank". Mr Rudd is also thought to be positioning himself to be in the running to take over as United Nations Secretary-General when Ban Ki-moon's term ends.