During last year's Australian general election campaign, Kevin Rudd told CCTV that, if he won, 'I look forward to taking the relationship between China and Australia to a whole new level. I have many friends there.'
Well, Mr Rudd did win the election on November 24, but this particular promise is sounding a little hollow at the moment given the decision by his government to cancel a new large-scale international cultural relations programme.
Last week, the media reported that, as part of its budget-cutting strategy, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is scrapping its A$20.4 million (HK$140 million) Australia on the World Stage programme, which was introduced only last May by the former foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer.
It's a curious decision, given the desire expressed by Mr Rudd and his government to build 'a comprehensive relationship strategy with China - the country which is likely to shape so much of Australia's strategic and economic future for the next half-century', to use the words of Mr Rudd, himself a Putonghua-speaking former diplomat who was posted to Beijing in the 1980s.
The Australia on the World Stage programme was an attempt to address the fact that while, for example, Britain spends the equivalent of A$19 per head on cultural diplomacy initiatives, in Australia that figure is only 17 cents. China was a key target of the programme, which Mr Downer said was to 'project an appropriate and contemporary image of Australia, boost our cultural exports, promote Australian tourism and education, and support the promotion of indigenous art'.
If Australia and China are to understand each other genuinely, and therefore build a solid basis for their future relationship, then each country must have some insight into the artistic and creative culture of the other, so the argument goes.