Word: australia
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...With a little help, perhaps, from his star turn with Hu, Rudd was elected PM Nov. 24. Now the former diplomat, who campaigned on slogans like "new leadership," "fresh ideas" and "a vision for the future," is preparing to redirect Australia's approach to the world. The scale of his win, the gratitude of his party and his reputation as an autocrat put Rudd on track to be the most presidential PM Australia's seen. A keen interest in foreign affairs - sparked at age 14 when then-PM Gough Whitlam became the first Western leader to visit Beijing - suggests...
...could get him to say a few words in Chinese. But at a lunch in Sydney in September, he went way beyond party tricks. Welcoming Chinese President Hu Jintao, Rudd broke into fluent Mandarin. Prime Minister John Howard and Hu had just witnessed a $35 billion contract for Australia to supply natural gas to China. But it wasn't the historic deal that set news wires abuzz - it was the image of Rudd upstaging Howard and impressing his guest. Next day, Hu invited the Labor Party leader and his family to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics...
...Rudd said his first move as PM would be to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. But with Australia's emissions targets already met, ratification is largely a matter of image - Aussies for a nicer, cleaner world. New leaders' first trips abroad are always scrutinized for significance. Rudd's will be to Bali Dec. 3, to attend preliminary U.N. talks on what will follow Kyoto. He said the visit "would be a way of indicating that we intend to be globally diplomatically active" on climate change. "We are sure that his attendance will have a symbolic meaning...
...Rudd's ratification of Kyoto, and the perception of an Australian withdrawal from Iraq, could seem like rebuffs of the U.S., but the new PM's next trip after Bali is expected to be to Washington, where Australia can draw on a large reservoir of goodwill accumulated during the Howard era. "I am a passionate supporter of the U.S. alliance," Rudd said during the election campaign, "but good allies of America say, Mate, this time you've got it wrong and you need to do it differently...
...Australia's second largest trading partner after China. Australian bases are key nodes in the U.S. satellite security system, and the two nations' defense forces are closely intertwined. "Australia will remain a close and reliable ally of the U.S.," says the Lowy Institute's Fullilove. "But Labor will explain the alliance in a different way" from the Howard government. "They won't so much emphasize loyalty. They'll emphasize Australian ideas, the advocacy of Australian interests. They'll sell that story to Australians, that the value of the alliance is, 'We have the ear of the world's most powerful...