The exact hour is lost to time but I looked up from the cubicle to watch the TV and who should be expressing his condolences in a second language but Kevin. I’m not qualified to comment on his turn of phrase but others in the room said his command of rhetoric made him sound like he had spent time at the Party School. Nevertheless, it was a simple act that undoubtedly carried weight.
Kevin also addressed students at Peking University last month and described Australia and China as “old friends” and refered to being “true friends”. These may seem minor points in a six-page speech but they were in the context of “offering unflinching advice” and counselling “restraint to engage in principled dialogue about matters of contention” ie. that restive autonomous region in the far west. Some say the true friend phrase has since come into popular diplomatic use in Beijing, with other countries using it to couch their own unflinching advice.
Kevin is not the only Australian politician to use Putonghua to reach out to people on the mainland. Who could forget Amanda Vanstone’s passion for the language and her speech to guests at a film festival launch about four years ago? It should have been nipped in the bud.
