PARIS — In September 2007, when Chinese President Hu Jintao was visiting Australia, he was pleasantly surprised to encounter the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, who upstaged Prime Minister John Howard by delivering a welcoming address at a state lunch in fluent Chinese.
Rudd, a China scholar who had served in the Australian embassy in Beijing in the 1980s, then carried on a half-hour conversation with the Chinese leader without an interpreter.
On that occasion, President Hu announced that two pandas would be sent to Adelaide Zoo. Rudd then said that if his party won the next election, "we would also welcome pandas coming to my home city of Brisbane."