Sébastien Le Belzic / Photo credit: ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
modified to
09:49, July 24, 2023
Diplomacy is a matter of symbols and the panda is the symbol of China. Offering these large living black and white stuffed animals, which are the delight of zoos, today reflects a healthy diplomatic relationship between China and any other country.
If these black and white teddy bears have become the symbol of China, it is because the country has a monopoly on them. Only in China, in the central forests of the country, are pandas born in the wild. You can’t find it anywhere else in the world.
Animals rented out
Beijing decided to give it as a symbol of its good diplomatic relations. If in the 1950s, it was rather to countries and friends of the communist bloc that Beijing offered these bamboo eaters, in the 1970s, pandas began to travel all over the world.
It is the historical rapprochement with the United States, then the commercial and diplomatic agreements with Japan, Canada, Germany and of course France that marks the evolution of this offering. The only difference, since 1984, pandas are no longer given away, but rented for substantial sums: 800,000 euros per year for the two pandas at Beauval zoo, for example.
Conversely, when the towel burns, the panda must go home. This was the case last spring, when a panda, loaned by China to the United States 20 years ago, was repatriated. Sign of the growing tensions between Beijing and Washington.