Pandas: Cute. Photo credit: Rick Weiss, http://flic.kr/p/9Cg1tZ
Two giant, and presumably jet-lagged, pandas have arrived at Edinburgh Zoo on a ten-year loan from China. Tian Tian and Yang Guang – or Sweetie and Sunshine, as they will be known in Scotland – are part of China’s “panda diplomacy” programme, which sees the country lending out its bears to strengthen diplomatic ties and to raise money for the conservation of wild pandas. But cute and cuddly as the pandas are, is the loan really black and white?
Giant cost. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland will have to pay China £640,000 a year for the privilege of hosting the pandas, as well as forking out £70,000 for food and £250,000 to create a special panda enclosure, according to Henry Nicholls on The Guardian’s Comment Is Free. Nicholls pointed out that a South Australian zoo faced financial ruin after hosting pandas: “The income that captive pandas can generate for a zoo is unlikely to match the expense,” he said.
Giant cynic? “A thoroughly commercial deal” is how Andrew Bolger described the panda loan at The Financial Times, pointing out that the arrival of Sweetie and Sunshine will strengthen commercial ties between China and Scotland. “China is an emerging market for Scotch whisky, with exports to China worth £57m in the year to June,” said Bolger.
Pandering to PRs? “The arrival of Tian Tian and Yang Guang at Edinburgh Zoo is as much a triumph for public relations executives as it is for conservationists,” wrote Adam Sherwin in The Independent, describing how the event was stage-managed for the media. According to Sherwin, a Chinese media outlet that has reported on the country’s human rights abuses claimed it was banned from the panda press conference.
Panda power. Clarissa Tan wrote on a Spectator blog that China will benefit from the publicity. “What could be more useful for a nation regularly accused of human rights violations, and which executes more people a year than the rest of the world combined, than having these cuddly mammals as ambassadors?” she wrote, arguing that the bears allow the country to present a “friendly face”.
Political panda-monium? The political significance of the pandas is considerable, said Tom Parry in The Daily Mirror, exploring the Chinese history of panda-giving: “Just three years ago, following intense wrangling, the long-running feud between China and Taiwan was smoothed over by the gift of two pandas,” he said.
