It is funny watching the conservatives squirm. They know their leaders should be intelligent, articulate, and multi-lingual. Instead they have John Howard.

The comments on this page viz. 'Rudd's use of Chinese was...an embarrassment to the Chinese.' are hilarious. You guys are desperate. Rudd shows us that he is intelligent, a man of the future, and in tune with the region. And what is your response... you invent some bulls**t story about how Rudd embarrasses the Chinese. You guys are in deep s**t. Breathe deep.

And surely if the Chinese were so terribly embarrassed about it, it would be all over the Chinese newspapers. They certainly don't have trouble kicking up a stink when a Japanese politician does something they are insulted by.

I ask the poster Communicat to provide a link to a single Chinese newspaper article that describes how insulting it was, that an Australian politician spoke their language in public.

The Chinese would be too polite.
I based my comments on (a) a sound knowledge of the Chinese community, many of whom I have taught over the years, and (b) the private feedback I received from them.
Smiles often hide embarrassment in Chinese culture and the body language was, according to them, one of embarrassment.
This was being discussed at a meeting yesterday - where there were a mix of Chinese speakers and monolingual English speakers and a couple of multi-lingual speakers. One of the multi-lingual speakers suggested it was like taking people to a restaurant where there is a chef and a waiting service and then proceeding to take over the kitchen (I can cook/speak better than you) and ignore the waiting (interpreting)service while you proceed to deal with the dishes yourself in full view of the other diners as well as your guests.
Everyone present (over 20 people - 23 I think) considered Rudd's behaviour to be inappropriate but, as one of the Chinese speakers pointed out to me, it would be equally inappropriate to point out to the host (in this case Rudd) had behaved that way.
Some sections of Australian society are so focussed on Asia to the exclusion of the rest of the world that any Asian language skill is assumed to be a positive thing whenever and wherever and however badly it is used.
I was not going to mention it but I do speak an Asian language (among a number of others) - and at least as well Kevin Rudd. I would not however have presumed to use it in those circumstances

Communicat

'Some sections of Australian society are so focussed on Asia to the exclusion of the rest of the world that any Asian language skill is assumed to be a positive thing whenever and wherever and however badly it is used.'

That is an excellent point and I think I can recall a similar emphasis when trade with and tourism from Japan was on the rise. If I recall Japanese was held up as the regional language of the future, even though more people in our economic region, at the time, spoke Bahasa Indonesian.

Now while proportionally more people in our current region speak a Chinese dialect the languages of the region are far more diverse than seems to be recognised. The major languages are Chinese, Sanskrit, English and still Bahasa Indonesian. But the common language across the economic zone is C++. The emphasis on Chinese is a distraction. While China may become our biggest trading partner it behoves us to recognise our other neighbours and trading partners are not going to go away. And that is the point all the commentators have missed in Rudd's seeming concentration on Chinese to the exclusion of our traditional partners.

Once again the Labor Party and it's leaders are adopting a favourite among our neighbours and partners. Will they never learn? Once the Yank's, then the Indonesians, then the minnows among the UN, then China, then Indonesia, again *sigh*, and now China, again *sigh*. And the media still cops, accepts and plays up this exclusionist type of bulldust.

Ahhhh the more things change the more they stay the same.

Dr. Livingstone, I am glad that the criminal Bush, the man with his finger on the button, at least does not drink himself into oblivion.

Imagine it, Bush waking up after a big night out being confronted by the Joint Chiefs, " what did you do to Russia last night?"
Bush: "I don't remember, I was too drunk".

There are holes in the Rudd fairy-story big enough to drive an Abrams thru, and I'm happy to oblige you.

The Left often accuse Howard of being unnecessarily accommodating to the US.
I thought Rudd's excursion into Mandarin embarrassingly obsequious to China - a country somewhat less attractive, I would have thought, to a democrat.
It was also a gratuitous, calculated and petty-minded insult to the others present who did not understand.