Panda politics
December 23rd 2008 11:34
Things have been warming for some time between Taiwan and the erstwhile bully boys across the strait, but today the relationship got downright chummy.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, two giant pandas, left Chengdu, Sichuan, today on a two and a half hour flight to their new home in the Taipei City Zoo. They, like so many breeding pairs of giant pandas before them, have been given by China as a diplomatic gift, courting friendship and détente. Unlike any pandas before them, these two went to Taiwan.
China wants Taiwan back under its sovereign control. Hong Kong was sweet, Macau was icing on the cake, but Taiwan is the big prize. After years of posturing, chest-thumping and face-offs between mainland naval vessels and Taiwan’s US-built fleet, Beijing tried the panda route, announcing the gift in 2005.
Three years of delays followed as the relationship barometer flipped in and out of the cordial zone, but now the gift has been delivered.
It is no small gesture. Giant pandas are found in the wild only in China, and they are an endangered species. A breeding pair is an enormously prized acquisition.
Reflecting that, Taiwan’s two four-year-old pandas will live in a custom-built, US$9.1 million enclosure. They will have 5,500 square metres of space, including air-conditioning and humidity control, murals of snow-capped mountains and a glass-enclosed, noise-proofed garden.
There is great excitement amongst the island’s 20 million inhabitants, and about 25,000 people are expected to visit the pandas every day.
What does China want from this exercise in détente? Here’s a big clue: in Mandarin, the names Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan together mean “reunion”.
Politically, they remain a long way apart. But today, with the arrival of that plane from Chengdu, the warmth factor from the Taiwanese towards their mainland cousins was higher than it has been in a very long time.
Merry Christmas Taiwan. Merry Christmas Orble.
Xinhua, www.telegraph.co.uk
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