It’s been a long time coming, but now I am bloody proud of being Australian simply and purely because of the brilliant man who has become the new Austrian prime minister, Kevin Rudd. For many years, I was embarrassed by John Howard, our former neatherdaal of a prime minister. Instead, now I have a prime minister who can connect with everyday people but is also a powerhouse intellectual. In a recent speech (analysis in full) given in Peking University, in fluent Mandarin:

Rudd’s brilliance in the speech involves turning the Chinese term “friend” on its head. Friend (pengyou in Chinese) and frienship (youyi) are two of the most distorted concepts in modern China culture. In modern China, a friend is someone who will do you favors and who expects favors in return. A “foreign friend” is someone the Chinese party-state expects will carry water for them and NEVER criticize them.

Whenever a Chinese official called me “foreign friend” (waiguo pengyou), I knew some type of horrible deal would soon be asked or expected of me.

“To be a friend of China, the Chinese people, the party-state or, in the reform period, even a mainland business partner,” Barme writes, “the foreigner is often expected to stomach unpalatable situations, and keep silent in the face of egregious behaviour. A friend of China might enjoy the privilege of offering the occasional word of caution in private; in the public arena he or she is expected to have the good sense and courtesy to be ‘objective.’ that is to toe the line, whatever that happens to be. The concept of ‘friendship’ thus degenerates into little more than an effective tool for emotional blackmail and enforced complicity.”

So what did Rudd do? He went back — way back — into Chinese history, to the 7th century AD, and used another word for friendship (zhengyou).

“A true friend,” Rudd said, “is one who can be a zhengyou, that is a partner who sees beyond immediate benefit to the broader and firm basis for continuing, profound and sincere friendship.”

For those of you who are citizens of the oldest democracy in the world, I sincerely hope that you elect a former professor of law of the famous University of Chicago, so that you too can experience what it is like to have a brilliant intellectual statesman to steer your nation.