User:Fir Gotten/panda

Panda Diplomacy Planned Additions

Ever since the 1950's, the Chinese has had a communist government. The National People's Congress (NPC), the State Council and the President (the head of state) all have the power of the government. As it states in the Chinese constitution, the highest organ of state power of China is the NPC. The term "Panda Diplomacy" was first used in the cold war.

Between the years of 1957 and 1983, 24 pandas were gifted to nine nations to make friends. This is considered "gifting" as there was no price tag attached to these 24 pandas. These nine nations included the Soviet Union, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (what would later be known as North Korea), the United States of America (due to President Nixon's visit), and the United Kingdom (due to Premier Edward Heath's visit). This was when Mao Zedong was the Chinese communist chairman. President Nixon went to China for a visit and Mao Zedong stated that they would send two pandas to a zoo found in America. In exchange for these pandas received by the Chinese, President Nixon returned the gift by gifting two musk oxen to the Chinese. This gift between China and the United States show a strong diplomatic relationship of each other. The female panda, Ling-Ling and the male panda, Hsing-Hsing were given on 1972. Although there is a long history behind panda diplomacy, before these two pandas were gifted, for over twenty-years, there has not been a panda in the U.S. The panda gifted to the UK would later be the logo's inspiration for the World Wildlife Fund.

Chiang Mai Zoo is a zoo and aquarium that opened in 1977 in Thailand. It is located on Huay Kaew Road and is west of Chiang Mai University. Before it opened up as an official zoo for the public in 1977, it was an area where Harold Mason Young took care of injured animals. He always kept the area open to the public so the community could see what he did to take care of the many animals. When the zoo opened up, it was the first commercial zoo in Thailand.

Deng Xiaoping started the process of gift-loaning pandas in 1984, starting with China presenting two pandas to Los Angelos during the 1984 Olympic Games for $50,000 per month per panda. This practice ended in 1991 in the popular favor of long-term loans. The gifting of two pandas to Hong Kong in 2007 was seen as outside of the spectrum of panda diplomacy.

After the 2008 earthquake that made many facilities no longer functional, 60 panda required new housing, and most of them were giving to nations that either have trade agreements with China since 2009 or nations that supplied China with necessary resources. There is a strong connection of panda loans and countries supplying China with uranium.

Keeping pandas is very expensive. Beside the cost of the "rent" from China, obtaining enough bamboo is very expensive. The Edinburgh zoo spends $107,000 per year to feed its two pandas. This caused the zoo to ask for bamboo donations, as well as for local gardeners to start growing bamboo in 2011.

In 2003, China sent Thailand two very popular pandas, Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui to the Chiang Mai Zoo. They have been living in Chiang Mai Zoo since then but in 2007 Chuang Chuang was put on a diet due to becoming obese. In September 2019, Chuang Chuang suddenly died which caused a lot of outrage. The public started to blame this incident on China's panda diplomacy. They thought sending giant animals abroad to other countries was no longer a good idea and was bad for the animals health. It could also make the population of the endangered animals they were sending decrease at a faster rate.

Copenhagen Zoo opened a panda enclosure in 2019 for two pandas on lease from China for 15 years with the price tag of $1 million annually. The enclosure itself cost $24 million, though it was privately funded. Eva Flyvholm, a member of Denmark's parliament for the Unity party, said in a statement that, "Denmark gets the pandas because we have dropped our criticism of the Chinese repression of Tibet, and because Chinese human rights violations aren’t being criticized so much." 40 new trade agreements with China were signed with the panda loan agreement in 2019.