Does the West have a new secret weapon in dealing with China in the person of Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister of Australia?

Rudd is the only Western leader who speaks Chinese, and his Chinese is pretty good at that. But deeper still is Rudd's understanding of China.

Australian China scholar Geremie Barme unpacks Rudd's marvelous speech, given at Beijing University last week, in which he bluntly called on China to recognize its human rights problems in Tibet.

Most Western leaders probably would have either punted or come on too strong. Rudd's tone, however, was pitch perfect.

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.