The winner in China’s panda diplomacy: the pandas themselves

WASHINGTON (AP) — China’s panda diplomacy might have one true winner: the pandas themselves.

Many years after Beijing started working with zoos within the U.S. and Europe to guard the species, the variety of large pandas within the wild has risen to 1,900, up from about 1,100 within the Nineteen Eighties, and they’re now not thought-about “in danger” of extinction however have been given the safer standing of “susceptible.”

People can take some credit score for this accomplishment, as a result of conserving the species shouldn’t be purely a Chinese language enterprise however a worldwide effort the place U.S. scientists and researchers have performed a vital function.

“We stock out scientific and analysis cooperation with San Diego Zoo and the zoo in Washington within the U.S., in addition to European nations. They’re extra superior in facets corresponding to veterinary medication, genetics and vaccination, and we be taught from them,” mentioned Zhang Hemin, chief professional on the China Conservation and Analysis Heart for the Big Panda within the southwestern Chinese language metropolis of Ya’an.

Zhang spoke to journalists throughout a latest government-organized media tour on the Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base, dwelling to 66 pandas that lolled about and chomped on stalks of bamboo in a tranquil setting wealthy with vegetation.

China’s large panda mortgage program has lengthy been referred to as a software of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy, however its conservation significance may have been an vital cause Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos and sending new pairs of pandas at a time of in any other case bitter relations.

A pair of pandas that arrived on the San Diego Zoo in June will debut to the general public after a number of weeks of acclimation. One other pair will come to the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Zoo later this yr, and a 3rd pair will settle within the San Francisco Zoo within the close to future.

Their arrivals herald a brand new spherical of large panda conservation cooperation, after the agreements from the primary spherical — which started round 1998 — ended in recent times. The continued difficulties within the U.S.-China relationship fueled worries Beijing was retreating from sending pandas overseas, however President Xi Jinping in November dispelled the troubles with an announcement throughout a U.S. go to final yr.

It’s a good transfer to melt China’s picture amongst People however is unlikely to alter U.S. coverage, mentioned Barbara Okay. Bodine, a former ambassador who’s now a professor within the apply of diplomacy at Georgetown College.

“If they’re to mission China not as an enormous, threatening nation, they ship a number of pairs of overstuffed plush toys,” she mentioned. “Pandas are cute, fats and fluffy. They sit all day and eat bamboos, then China is type of this cuddly and fluffy nation. It’s one of the best signaling.”

However “it doesn’t change the political dialogue one whit,” Bodine mentioned. “Public diplomacy can do solely a lot. It doesn’t change the geopolitical, financial calculations. Folks don’t go dwelling after the zoo to be OK for the U.S. to be flooded with low-cost EVs (electrical automobiles) from the panda land.”

Conservation, nonetheless, is conserving the 2 sides working collectively.

Zhang mentioned there are advantages from sending pandas abroad.

“Pandas quickly dwelling overseas raises people’ consciousness of preservation, and promotes consideration to our planet and the safety of biodiversity,” Zhang mentioned. “Why isn’t it good?”

Zhang mentioned pandas despatched abroad have been chosen for his or her good genes. “They’ve very excessive hereditary values. In the event that they bear offspring, the cubs additionally can have very excessive hereditary values,” he mentioned.

Whereas Western analysis leads in genetic research, China excels at feeding and behavioral coaching, he mentioned. “It’s mutually complementary,” Zhang mentioned. The last word purpose, researchers say, is to assist the bears return to the wild and survive, and a bigger captive-bred panda inhabitants is the inspiration for that effort.

The primary large pandas despatched overseas have been extra gestures of goodwill than conservation pioneers from a Chinese language communist authorities in search of to normalize its relations with the West. Beijing gave a pair of pandas — Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing — to the U.S. following President Richard Nixon’s historic go to to China in 1972 after which different pandas to different nations, together with Japan, France, Britain and Germany, over the subsequent decade.

When the panda inhabitants dwindled within the Nineteen Eighties, Beijing stopped gifting pandas however turned to extra profitable short-term leasing then longer-term collaboration with international zoos on analysis and breeding.

Underneath this sort of new association, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived on the Nationwide Zoo in 2000, with the final word purpose of saving large pandas within the wild. Over the 23 years Mei Xiang lived within the U.S. capital, she gave start to 4 dwelling cubs: Tai Shan in 2005, Bao Bao in 2013, Bei Bei in 2015, and Xiao Qi Ji in 2020. All have been returned to China.

Bei Bei, despatched to China in 2019, walked over to a row of lined-up bamboo shoots final month, picked one up along with his tooth and sat all the way down to eat it as a cluster of tourists seemed on on the Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Base. Employees described the practically 9-year-old male as sociable.

Smithsonian scientists have been working to “unravel the mysteries of panda biology and habits, gaining essential insights into their dietary wants, reproductive habits and genetic range,” the Nationwide Zoo says in its literature on the panda program.

Its ecologists have been working with Chinese language companions to revive pure habitats for the enormous panda, the zoo mentioned.

Through the years, it has raised tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to run the zoo’s panda conservation program, together with an annual payment of $1 million to the China Wildlife Conservation Affiliation.

“The aim of the fund is said very clearly — it’s scientific and analysis funds for the preservation of untamed large pandas and their habitats,” Zhang mentioned. “They’re very clear about this. It’s not an revenue of the Chinese language authorities.”

Pandas born abroad can face a language barrier when they’re despatched to China, mentioned Li Xiaoyan, the keeper for Bei Bei and two different bears from overseas.

“Some pandas might adapt in a short time and simply upon return, whereas others want a very long time to regulate to a brand new atmosphere, particularly human components corresponding to language,” Li mentioned. “Abroad, international languages are spoken. In China it’s Chinese language that’s used, and even Sichuanese and the Ya’an dialect.”

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AP video producer Caroline Chen contributed to this report from Ya’an, China.