陆克文成首位澳大利亞國語電視台嘉宾 Kevin Rudd speaking Chinese on Australian TV

The Great Harmony 世界主義 大同思想

From November 24, Australia's multicultural broadcasting service, SBS, will be flying on its own wings. Until now it had been making available news in Mandarin relayed from CCTV news, China's government controlled TV network. It will inaugurate its first national news in Mandarin by interviewing Australia's current Foreign Affairs Minister and former Australia's PM, Kevin Rudd 陸克文. When he was Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd gave a speech in Peking University 北京大學 where he declared himself as being China's "true friend" 諍友 , one who would have no hesitation to tell off a friend of his mistakes and errors in judgment. At the time Rudd, who learned Chinese in both Taiwan and China, spoke in Chinese quoting Lu Xun 魯迅 and Kang Youwei 康有為 both critical of the Chinese government of their time, the latter having to flee in exile.
Kevin Rudd has also told humorously of his days as a junior diplomat when he tried to speak a more classical form of Chinese and ended up, unwittingly, saying that "China and Australia were experiencing fantastic mutual orgasm."

Kevin Rudd by Simon Bosch

One of the reasons for SBS setting up an independent Mandarin news service could be related to complaints from the Vietnamese community in Australia, which had been complaining that just relaying Vietnam's Television Service on their network was offensive to them because of its lack of reports on political arrests and religious oppression.

The Global Times enthusiastically reporting on the event in its Chinese language edition is probably wondering whether this may go against the Chinese government's policy of harmony. They have no reason to be worried: Kevin Rudd while in Peking University did remind his audience that Kang Youwei in exile, after 1898, started to write about The Great Harmony 世界主義 大同思想 which he saw as "a Utopian world free of political boundaries."

The Nobel Peace Prize Academy in Oslo was probably thinking along these lines when awarding its prize to a Chinese writer.