KEVIN Rudd’s bilingual abilities have impressed not just the Chinese delegates at APEC but also President Hu Jintao and Mandarin speakers around the world.

Mr Hu started yesterday’s meeting with the Opposition Leader — conducted entirely in Mandarin — by complimenting him on his command of the language during a luncheon speech on Thursday.

“You speak fluently in Chinese and you know Chinese inside and out,” Mr Hu told Mr Rudd, a former diplomat in Australia’s Beijing embassy. “You show much interest to the development of Australia’s relations with China, and I really appreciate that.”

Mr Rudd earlier denied that his use of Mandarin was an act of political one-upmanship.

“My view is that if you’ve got the President of China in town, the objective is to make him feel as welcome as possible,” he said.

Senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney Yiyan Wang said if she were teaching Mr Rudd, she would give him a high credit or a low distinction.

“He would be one of my top students if he was in my class,” she said. “You can tell he is a foreigner, but he is a very good speaker.”

She said it was obvious that he had drafted the speech himself because some of his sentence structures and vocabulary were not exactly the same as if he had been born Chinese.

“He is the first potential Australian prime minister who can speak an Asian language and this is veryimpressive,” she said. “Even though it is not perfect Chinese, it is perfect foreigners’ Chinese.”

Colin Mackerras, Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies from Griffith University in Queensland agreed, saying Mr Rudd’s Chinese was “very clear, with very good pronunciation, excellent”.

But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer attacked Mr Rudd, suggesting he was showing off with his use of Mandarin. Mr Downer said learning languages was part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade training. “If you go and join the foreign service and you do a language course, you are obviously going to learn a language,” he said.

“I did the French language course and Mr Rudd did the Chinese language course. I did mine in two months and he did his in two years, that could say something him and me or something about the two languages. I think the former but that sounds a tad partisan.”

In the meeting yesterday, Mr Rudd told Mr Hu he wanted to lift Australia’s relationship with China to the next level by broadening economic ties to include the financial services sector. The two men covered topics from climate change to China’s relationship with the US and tensions with Taiwan.

“As a further indication of some kindness towards myself, he invited myself and my family to attend the Olympics in Beijing next year, which I would be very keen to do,” Mr Rudd said.