Reading the news, it looks like both President Bush and Prime Minister Howard have had a bad time of it at the Sydney APEC summit. First, you have the Labor Party candidate, Asia Studies degree holder and former Beijing diplomat Kevin Rudd, giving a speech in fluent Chinese with Hu Jintao present. Howard must have been livid. Second, you’ve got the Chinese delegation out-performing the U.S. on the diplomatic front:

Mr Bush, who has been criticised by his supporters in Australia for ignoring Asia, bristled at suggestions that the meeting was being dominated by China.

“Is this a China summit? The answer is absolutely not,” Mr Bush said. “This is a summit of nations that share the same values, same concerns about the world in which we live.” However, Beijing’s momentum gathered pace on Thursday, with state-owned PetroChina signing Australia’s largest single export deal [for] liquefied natural gas from a field off Western Australia.

Mr Hu also wheeled out a time-honoured public relations gambit used by Beijing to soften its image, with an agreement to lend two giant pandas to Australia’s Adelaide zoo for 10 years. (From the FT.)

Pulling out the old panda gambit. Classics never go out of style, that’s why they’re classics.

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