In this chapter I examine the role of a particular kind of cultural diplomacy to recover a history of engagement that was snuffed out by post-war international turmoil and the momentous struggle for power in China. The Chinese diplomat, Tsao Wenyen, served in three different Australian cities at a time of critical importance to Australia's fate in the developing Pacific War. In a way that highlights the nature of diplomacy as performance, Tsao's speeches and published writings self-consciously played to the task of presenting China as ancient, cultured and vast, while also modernising rapidly to secure its place among the world's leading nations. At a time when Australia's anxieties about its Asian relations were heightened by the deteriorating situation across the Asia-Pacific region, Tsao's diplomacy sought to address Australian ignorance, indifference and hostility