THIS evening, Kevin Rudd will deliver a long-awaited address over which he will have agonised in the early hours, following his arm-wrestling with the premiers over health.
The Prime Minister is speaking at his alma mater, the Australian National University, on "Australia and China in the World". There is no topic on which he is better qualified to talk, but also none on which he has been so reluctant, in recent times, to do so publicly.
The section of the speech likely to be most enthusiastically applauded will be his heavily anticipated announcement of a massive grant - believed to be about $35 million - to establish one of the world's leading research centres on China at the ANU, as revealed in The Australian.
Tomorrow he goes on to launch at the ANU - whose new chancellor is Gareth Evans - the National Security College, to be led by former adviser to John Howard and foreign affairs head Michael L'Estrange.
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