Kevin Rudd, the Australian opposition leader who is riding high in polls before a general election expected next month, upstaged the Prime Minister yesterday by addressing the Chinese President in fluent Mandarin at a state luncheon in his honour.

There was an almost audible intake of breath among the scores of Chinese political and business heavyweights in the audience. Many sat bolt upright, beaming at Mr Rudd’s command of Mandarin and his folksy account of his years as a young Australian foreign affairs official in Beijing.

It was not a comfortable moment for John Howard, the Prime Minister, whose Foreign Minister had earlier missed the subtleties of Beijing’s much vaunted “panda diplomacy”.

Commentators noted that Mr Rudd had chosen the ideal moment to show-case his linguistic skills on the international stage. He spoke at length in English first, showing a grasp of China’s history and its reformers and praising their efforts over two decades to turn the nation into a global titan, before welcoming President Hu Jintao personally in Chinese.

“My wife and I have a particular love for Beijing – we love the feeling of Beijing, we love the people of Beijing and of course its culture,” Mr Rudd told the President. He said that in the 1980s he went with his wife and daughter to live and work in China as a diplomat.

“Twenty years later the little girl that we took to Beijing, this April married a young man from the Australian Chinese community. I also have a little boy (our youngest) who is in his early years of high school. He is really, really naughty, he doesn’t like doing his homework. But he has already begun his study of Chinese.” Mr Howard’s remarks that China would this year become Australia’s largest trading partner, and his announcement of a formal annual dialogue between the two nations, were worthy but largely overlooked.

The exchange could not have been a comfortable moment for Mr Howard as he hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Council (Apec) summit of 21 world leaders – the biggest gathering of world leaders yet in Australia. He began the week with an opinion poll showing that he trails Mr Rudd’s Labor Party by 18 points. His woes were compounded by the intricacies of China’s “panda diplomacy”.

“It was once ping pong; now pandas are making a contribution to our relationship,” Mr Howard said to applause after President Hu announced that two pandas would be sent to Adelaide Zoo. “That has nothing to do with the fact that my Foreign Minister comes from South Australia,” he said.

Mr Howard might have been better omitting any mention of his Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, who had earlier joked about panda mating habits . After a news conference where an expert mentioned that pandas mated only three or four times a year, Mr Downer replied: “I’m glad I wasn’t born a panda. Suck on that.”

Robert Macklin, an author and journalist, said: “Kevin Rudd has been playing bridge with Howard all year. He just played his hand brilliantly today.”

Lost in translation

–– Although President Kennedy technically described himself as a doughnut when he said Ich bin ein Berliner" in an historic 1963 speech, the people of Berlin felt it struck the right chord of Cold War solidarity; the Rudolph Wilde Platz where he delivered the address was later renamed John F. Kennedy Platz

–– Viva España!" were the words with which Guillermo Léon Valencia, then President of Colombia, mistakenly greeted France’s President de Gaulle at Bogotá airport in 1963 Yoshiro Mori, the former Prime Minister of Japan, greeted President Clinton with: How are you?" Clinton understood Who are you?" and responded: Well, I am Hillary’s husband" – to which Mr Mori replied: Me too."

–– Joaquim Chissano, former President of the African Union, spoke in Swahili. Delegates struggled in vain to find a translation channel. It was not listed as an official language, despite being spoken by 100 million people

Sources: jfklibrary.org, wires, The Times database, Diplo Foundation http://www.diplomacy.edu/

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