A Western diplomat's 'phenomenal' China story

Carl Worker's close involvement with China stretches across three decade - salmost as long as his diplomatic career.

The outgoing New Zealand ambassador to China joined his country's diplomatic corps after college in 1980, and spent the next year in Canberra, where he says, he first "dipped my toe in the world of Asian things" working in the Asian department.

After he returned to Wellington from Australia in 1980, he went for intensive Mandarin lessons, first at the London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, and then for another year at a language school in Hong Kong.