50 years of panda diplomacy: China's cute propaganda

Created: 04/14/2022, 09:10

By: Sven Hauberg

In July 2017, Xi Jinping and Angela Merkel opened the new Berlin panda facility.

© Ma Zhancheng/Xinhua/Imago

50 years ago, China gave away two pandas to a western nation for the first time: the beginning of a success story - and a multi-million dollar business.

Munich/Washington – Richard Nixon knew exactly what coup he had landed.

"It's gonna be a hell of a story," said the 37th US President to his wife Pat in March 1972 - "It's going to be a damn good story".

A few weeks earlier, Nixon had become the first American President to visit communist China* and met Mao Zedong* and then Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.

From Beijing, Nixon had brought with him the declaration of intent of both countries "to build a bridge over the 16,000 miles distance and 22 years of enmity that have divided us in the past," as the president later put it.

And something else Nixon had with him when he flew back to Washington: the People's Republic's promise to give the United States two pandas as gifts.

Pat Nixon had raved about the black and white four-legged friends during a state visit to China, whereupon Prime Minister Zhou promised her to deliver a few pandas to the USA.

Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrived in Washington, DC on April 16, 1972, they were one and a half years old.

They lived there in the zoo until their death.

The First Lady personally welcomed the pandas and spoke of a "valuable gift".

On the first day alone, 20,000 visitors are said to have come to the zoo to see the rare animals, in the first few years there were more than a million people.

China, one of the main enemies of the USA for many years, suddenly had a sympathetic face.

A "damn good story" - for President Nixon, but also for the government in Beijing.

Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing at the Washington, DC Zoo: The pandas were a gift from China.

© Xinhua/Imago

Animals have been used as diplomatic gifts for thousands of years.

In ancient Egypt, poorer states tried to influence more powerful opponents with their valuable gifts.

In the Middle Ages, giraffes or elephants brought to Europe from Africa always caused a stir.

China discovered early on the attraction of its pandas to other leaders.

In 685, Tang Empress Wu Zetian sent two pandas to Japan to impress the local emperor.

Modern China continued the tradition.

In 1957 the first bears were sent to the Soviet Union.

Other animals followed, mainly to socialist brother states.

The panda diplomacy of the People's Republic only really got going when Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing floated into the USA.

China: Expensive pandas for the Berlin Zoo

Around the world, about 50 pandas now live in zoos outside of China.

In Europe, the animals can be seen in ten zoos, from Spain to Finland.

However, the cute China ambassadors have not been given away for a long time.

Since the mid-1990s, Beijing has been charging dearly for the valuable animals.

A pair is said to cost around one million US dollars a year, exact figures do not exist.

Beijing usually rents out the animals for ten years.

But these contracts are often extended, as the sinologist Falk Harting wrote in an extensive study a few years ago.

Offspring born abroad automatically become the property of the People's Republic and are charged a rental fee of $500,000 per animal.

And most of the young animals have to be brought to China at the age of two.

Several pandas have also been living in Germany for a few years.

In July 2017, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Chinese head of state and party leader Xi Jinping* opened the panda facility in the Berlin Zoo, where Meng Meng and Jiao Qing have lived since then.

Pit and Paule were born in the summer of 2019, the first offspring of the two parents*.

How much the zoo pays annually for the pandas is a secret: "The exact amount of the financial contribution is a contract detail that we do not publish," said the zoo at the request of Merkur.de *.

But the money is well invested: "Around 80 percent of the contribution made by Zoo Berlin is spent directly on habitat protection in the bamboo forests of China, another part for reproduction research," says a spokeswoman.

When asked if the zoo could check

Keeping animals is not a cheap pleasure.

In addition to the costs for the enclosure, there are also expenses for food.

The Berlin Pandas eat more than 100 kilograms of bamboo every day.

A lot of money for a couple of four-legged friends.

But the animals attract attention;

Berlin's local media keep reporting about the cuddly bears, most recently about Pit and Paule in particular.

However, it is unclear how long the panda offspring will remain in the capital.

It is possible "that the two will leave us this year," the zoo said.

China: rental pandas as soft power

For China, the loan pandas are, above all, welcome propaganda that doesn't cost anything.

Political scientists speak of "soft power" when a country uses its culture to secure influence abroad.

Germany does this with the Goethe Institutes, for example, while China operates dozens of Confucius Institutes abroad where those interested can learn Chinese or attend calligraphy courses.

However, the offer is not really attractive.

While China's neighbors South Korea and Japan have been delighting the West with K-pop and manga for years, Chinese pop culture is virtually unknown outside of Asia.

The pandas stay.

Beijing's Premier Zhou Enlai promised Richard Nixon two pandas as a gift when he visited China.

© Imago/Zuma/Keystone

"Panda diplomacy is an important part of Chinese cultural diplomacy," explains Sinologist Maria Repnikova of Georgia State University.

China is polishing its image with the animals "quite successfully" and making headlines outside of politics, says Repnikova to Merkur.de.

Unlike in South Korea or Japan, for example, China does not allow cultural initiatives that are used to advertise abroad to come from the population.

"China's 'soft power' is being closely monitored and meticulously produced," she says.

With the pandas, Beijing has found the perfect figureheads.

The reproductively lazy animals are cute, they are apolitical, they are rare - according to estimates, only around 2000 animals live in the wild.

And they are a symbol of China that every child knows.

The aim of “soft power” is to take over a population in such a way that it ultimately influences politics.

In the case of China's "panda diplomacy," it's hard to say whether that really works, says Repnikova, pointing to China's declining popularity in the West.

According to the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of Americans view China negatively, and it's not much different in Europe.

Most recently, it was primarily the human rights violations in Xinjiang* and the corona pandemic that put China in a negative light.

But the hesitation of the government in Beijing to distance itself from Russia in the Ukraine war* does not exactly contribute to China's reputation in the West.

China: trade pandas for musk oxen

A visit to the zoo and some cute pandas can hardly change that.

"Foreign governments do not change their policy towards China to get a panda or after they get one," writes Sinologist Harting.

However, one should not underestimate the power of bears.

Because pandas only exist if a country is friendly towards China.

This is the result of an evaluation by the Hong Kong

that China's most important trading partners also own the most pandas.

How political the four-legged friends can be was shown in 2005. At that time, China wanted to send the two pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan to Taiwan*.

Shortly before, Beijing had enacted a law that would allow the island to be annexed to China by force if necessary if Taiwan were to declare independence*.

The pandas that Beijing wanted to hand over to Taipei were intended as a sign of goodwill.

But in Taiwan, things were different: if you combine the two names of the animals, you get the word

- reunification.

"Pandas are cute, but they're supposed to destroy Taiwan's psychological defenses," railed a Taiwan Independence Party lawmaker.

And Taiwan's then President Chen Shui-bian sensed unfair intentions and canceled the deal.

Only under Chen's successor, the more pro-China Ma Ying-jeou, were Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan allowed to enter the country.

Incidentally, as a return gift for Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, who came to China in April 50 years ago, the USA sent two musk oxen to Beijing*.

"We got the better deal by swapping the cuddly pandas for the ugly musk oxen," the then US National Security Advisor said in a recent interview.

Milton and Matila were the names of the mighty even-toed ungulates, but their fate was less happy than that of the Chinese pandas: Matila passed away in 1980, and Milton died a few years after his arrival.

Allegedly he had swallowed "a sharp object".

Stapleton Roy, who traveled to China with Nixon in 1972 and was US ambassador to Beijing in the 1990s, believes that the ox that was given as a gift fared the same after its death as many other dead zoo animals in China.

With little diplomacy he said:

*