China’s pandas are not just pandas. They’re diplomats.
You’re friendly to China? You get pandas. You criticise China? You get no pandas.
In recent years China has been increasingly hostile toward the West, and has shown their displeasure by withdrawing their pandas from zoos around the world.
By the end of next year there’ll be no pandas in the US, the UK’s pandas left in early December and Australia’s are due to leave in 2024.
But now, Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be having a change of heart.
Just hours after Washington’s pandas were sent back to China, Xi Jinping surprisingly hinted that he might send new pandas to America very soon.
This may indicate something very important — a return to a more peaceful relationship with the West.
But why? And why are pandas the key to understanding it?
All of this might seem like reading tea leaves or astrology, but the importance of the pandas is hard to overstate.
It started in the early 70s, when pandas were incredibly difficult for Westerners to see in person.
Wild pandas only exist in China, and China was almost entirely closed to Western tourism, so it was incredibly hard to actually see one.
Due to Chinese government control over the animals and the incredible difficulties zoos face in looking after the unique species, there was only one panda in the western world — London Zoo’s Chi Chi.
That all changed with Pat Nixon, wife of president Richard Nixon.
Foreign trips were Pat Nixon’s forte — she was a hit wherever she went.
While organising president Nixon’s China trip, Mao’s second in command Zhou Enlai, specifically requested that she come.
The purpose of the trip was to normalise relations between China and the US.
While her husband sat in meetings, Pat Nixon spent time with the Chinese people, including a visit to a Beijing zoo, where she saw her first ever panda.
That night at a state dinner, she was sitting next to Zhou Enlai. On the table in front of them was a cigarette box with a picture of pandas on it.
She told Premier Zhou that she thought they were cute.
“I’ll give you some,” said Zhou.
She asked if he meant he would give her some cigarettes.
He said, “No, I’ll give you some pandas.”
Just weeks later, Pat Nixon was at the National Zoo in Washington to see them arrive.
