''What would be your advice to Americans as to how we should view China now?'' Lehrer asked, in the live, prime-time interview on the US public broadcast network, PBS. ''As a competitor? As a potential ally? As an enemy? As a potential problem? What is it?''

Rudd described China as a huge opportunity. He went on to champion greater world engagement and giving it greater voting rights within the International Monetary Fund the world's financial emergency services agency (a kind of police, fire brigade and ambulance all in one).

''I think the smart course of action is to involve them,'' Rudd said of China. ''They're not perfect. They've done some bad things in the past. But let's look at the opportunities rather than simply assume that it's all threat and risk.''

But now, in such strong advocacy, there's the beginning of a risk for Rudd.

What he may see as the opportunity to be the guy who brings an isolated China finally into the world could end up being a dangerous domestic issue, if not also raising some Sinophobe nerves abroad. !

Rudd's advocacy is motivated by a genuine, considered belief in the need to engage China and force it to be a full global participant, with all the obligations of openness and responsibilities of regulated economic engagement which citizenry brings.

The Fitzgibbon saga has not rated a mention in the US media and probably won't (unless any more undeclared gifts emerge).

But the primary political risk is if the idea that he and his Government are too close to China takes hold at home.

Rudd's already made a photographic splash back home just by carrying a book emblazoned with the title China Rise, published by the institute at which he had just given a speech.

As he goes to London next week, Australian cameras will be trained for any contact with Hu. Having made so much of bringing China into the fold, he can hardly avoid it.

At home, the Opposition's decided to give the issue a red-hot go.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull referred to ministerial ''entanglement'' and called it a matter of ''most vital public interest''.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey seized on a report that China is buying up Australian Government bonds.

''The Australian Government is borrowing about $500 million a week from the Chinese Government,'' Hockey said on Channel Seven's Sunrise program. ''We also have major new interests from China in Rio Tinto and other minerals companies. What's going on?''

Politically, that's shameless. Would senior Coalition figures have said anything like that a mere couple of years back when they were in government and China was keeping Australia in iron-ore clover?

The Opposition has decided to play risky, populist politics and whip up some anti-China sentiment.

But the other side to this is that China plays hardball and what it wants including in Australia's resources sector it will push very, very hard to get. It will see Rudd as a very useful advocate.

And if you add the Fitzgibbon issue to Rudd's own previous associations with Chinese-Australian donors to the Labor Party, and the fact that just before he left for the US, he hosted China's Propaganda Minister at The Lodge without disclosing it publicly (the Chinese media were there, owned by its government of course), you have the makings of a potentially volatile Opposition campaign.

So far, Rudd has only addressed the Fitzgibbon transgressions superficially, waving away calls for his resignation.

But if he isn't concerned about the wider political implications, he should be.

Karen Middleton is chief political correspondent for SBS Television.