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Most Australians knew that if opposition leader Kevin Rudd was in a good mood, you could get him to say a few words in Chinese. But at a lunch in Sydney in September, he went way beyond party tricks. Welcoming Chinese President Hu Jintao, Rudd broke into fluent Mandarin. Prime Minister John Howard and Hu had just witnessed a $35 billion contract for Australia to supply natural gas to China. But it wasn't the historic deal that set news wires abuzz — it was the image of Rudd upstaging Howard and impressing his guest. Next day, Hu invited the Labor Party leader and his family to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

With a little help, perhaps, from his star turn with Hu, Rudd was elected PM Nov. 24. Now the former diplomat, who campaigned on slogans like "new leadership," "fresh ideas" and "a vision for the future," is preparing to redirect Australia's approach to the world. The scale of his win, the gratitude of his party and his reputation as an autocrat put Rudd on track to be the most presidential PM Australia's seen. A keen interest in foreign affairs — sparked at age 14 when then-PM Gough Whitlam became the first Western leader to visit Beijing — suggests he'll keep a tight grip on that portfolio, too. Having copied most of his predecessor's policies, Rudd is likely to build on Howard's foreign policy as well, making changes of inflection rather than direction. "It's not going to turn on a dime," says Michael Fullilove, of Sydney's Lowy Institute for International Policy. "But over time, the tone and feel and some of the priorities of Australian foreign policy will change." Rudd's performance before Hu hints at likely keynotes: a degree of guile, a focus on China, and a keen sense of symbolism.

Rudd said his first move as PM would be to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. But with Australia's emissions targets already met, ratification is largely a matter of image — Aussies for a nicer, cleaner world. New leaders' first trips abroad are always scrutinized for significance. Rudd's will be to Bali Dec. 3, to attend preliminary U.N. talks on what will follow Kyoto. He said the visit "would be a way of indicating that we intend to be globally diplomatically active" on climate change. "We are sure that his attendance will have a symbolic meaning for the conference," said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, "and also change the political dynamic." It will need to: on Kyoto II, Rudd is a late convert to the Howard position. That means no ratification unless China and India, currently exempted, submit to carbon-emissions controls.

Rudd is more of a multilateralist than Howard was, and will be "much more engaged with the U.N.," says William Tow, professor of international relations at the Australian National University. "He has a real commitment to Wilsonian principles. He will make values, as well as national interests, a matter of foreign policy. He'll emphasize dialogue and diplomacy."

Another of Rudd's key election promises was to pull Australian troops out of Iraq. But not all of them, and not right now. Instead, Rudd has said he will "begin negotiations with the Americans and Iraqis" on the withdrawal, in mid-2008, of one-third of the Australian troops in Iraq and the Gulf. A thousand will remain, to the dismay of Labor's antiwar left wing, and more may be sent to train Iraqi soldiers in Jordan or Oman. Rudd will consider sending more troops to join the 1,000 in Afghanistan.

Rudd's ratification of Kyoto, and the perception of an Australian withdrawal from Iraq, could seem like rebuffs of the U.S., but the new PM's next trip after Bali is expected to be to Washington, where Australia can draw on a large reservoir of goodwill accumulated during the Howard era. "I am a passionate supporter of the U.S. alliance," Rudd said during the election campaign, "but good allies of America say, Mate, this time you've got it wrong and you need to do it differently."

The U.S. is Australia's second largest trading partner after China. Australian bases are key nodes in the U.S. satellite security system, and the two nations' defense forces are closely intertwined. "Australia will remain a close and reliable ally of the U.S.," says the Lowy Institute's Fullilove. "But Labor will explain the alliance in a different way" from the Howard government. "They won't so much emphasize loyalty. They'll emphasize Australian ideas, the advocacy of Australian interests. They'll sell that story to Australians, that the value of the alliance is, 'We have the ear of the world's most powerful country, and we're going to try to use that to push our fresh thinking.'"

Balancing security and cultural ties to the U.S. with economic ties to China is a major preoccupation for Australia. Howard worked hard at it, and in 2003 invited Hu and President George W. Bush to address joint sittings of Parliament. Rudd shares Howard's vision of Australia as a bridge between the U.S. and China. On his first trip overseas as opposition leader, he addressed Washington's Brookings Institution on the implications of China's rise for U.S.-Australian relations. As a junior diplomat and later a business consultant, Rudd lived in China for a few years; his son-in-law is Chinese-Australian, and his two sons are studying Chinese. "I don't think there are too many more people in the Parliament of Australia who know more about China than I do," Rudd said soon after becoming Labor leader. His longest on-camera interview during the campaign was with China's CCTV network. "I look forward to taking the relationship between China and Australia to a whole new level," he said. Rudd wants Australia to be "the most China-literate and Asia-literate economy" in the West. Colin Mackerras, professor of Asian studies at Griffith University, says that in Beijing, "Rudd's having lived in China and speaking Chinese will have a good symbolic effect."

In his dance with China, Rudd will have to tread carefully. "The Chinese are always sensitive about our relationship with the U.S., even though they know we have the alliance," Mackerras says. "The fact that Howard was so pro-American was not a plus. A withdrawal from Iraq is likely to please the Chinese." A perception that Australia is too close to China, however, could displease Australia's Asia-Pacific allies. "I'm rock solid on the alliance with the U.S." Rudd has said. "I have never seen that as being mutually exclusive of a strong relationship with the People's Republic of China." His Washington trip is likely to take place a few months before he takes up Hu's invitation to Beijing. There may be symbolism in that.

• Elizabeth Keenan/Sydney