China will lend Australia new giant pandas, symbols of Beijing’s diplomatic friendships, the Chinese Prime Minister announced on Sunday visiting Adelaide. They will replace the couple of Ursidae whose loan contract is coming to an end.
The South Australian city’s zoo has hosted two giant pandas sent by Beijing, Wang Wang and Fu Ni, since 2009, a practice also known as ‘panda diplomacy’.
For China, panda diplomacy is a form of ‘soft power’, a strategy of influence in international relations. Beijing thus enters into loan agreements for its pandas with foreign zoos which, in the event of birth, generally have to return the small ursids a few years later so that they join the country’s breeding program.
As the loan agreement with Canberra expired this year, the two giant pandas in the care of Adelaide Zoo had still not given birth to cubs.
Diapause
The birth of pandas is a rare event: these herbivorous plantigrades have the ability, extremely rare in the animal kingdom, to stop the development of the fetus if they consider that the period is unfavorable for giving birth. This is the so-called ‘diapause’ period.
‘Wang Wang and Fu Ni have been away from home for 15 years. I guess they missed their home a lot so they will return to China before the end of the year,’ Chinese Premier Li Qiang said at Adelaide Zoo, the first stop on his trip to Australia, where the senior official Chinese landed on Saturday.
“But what I can tell you is that we will provide as soon as possible a new pair of equally beautiful, charming and adorable pandas,” Mr. Li assured, adding that Beijing will submit a list of candidates to Canberra.
‘It’s good for the economy, for jobs in South Australia, for tourism and it’s a symbol of goodwill. We thank you for that,’ replied Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
According to the WWF organization, there are 1,860 giant pandas left, mainly in bamboo forests in mountainous regions of China. Thanks to conservation programs, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) removed the panda from the category of ‘endangered’ at the end of 2016. It nevertheless remains listed as a vulnerable species in its red list of threatened species.
/ATS
