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Panda Diplomacy Planned Additions

The term "Panda Diplomacy" was first used in the cold war.

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 2014.

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). The panda gifted to the UK would later be the logo's inspiration for the World Wildlife Fund. 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. 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.

The gifting of two pandas to Hong Kong in 2007 was seen as outside of the spectrum of panda diplomacy.