China to give HK pandas to mark 10 years of home rule
Source: Reuters
BEIJING, Jan 10 (Reuters) - China is to donate a second pair of pandas to Hong Kong to mark the 10th anniversary of the former British colony's return to Chinese rule, the State Forestry Administration said on Wednesday. Beijing presented the first pair, An An and Jia Jia, to Hong Kong in 1999 and the Special Administrative Region requested a second pair in September. China would select a pair of "lively, healthy and young" pandas to give to the bustling territory which returned to China on July 1, 1997, administration spokesman Cao Qingyao said. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian told China last year to drop the idea of giving the self-ruled island a goodwill gift of a pair of pandas, saying they would not be happy. China has offered pandas to Taiwan several times in the past as goodwill gestures, but the island, which China considers a renegade province, has always turned them down. One lawmaker said the cute, cuddly animals were Beijing's version of the Trojan Horse, "meant to destroy Taiwan's psychological defences". Cao said two pandas specially chosen last year to go to Taiwan were in great health and just waiting to be allowed in. "All the preparations are completed, and we hope Taiwan can take an open attitude so that the pandas can get to Taiwan at an early date and meet their public," Cao told a press conference. The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China. An estimated 1,000 live in the southwestern province of Sichuan and in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces in the northwest. At the height of the Cold War, China's Communist leaders used "panda diplomacy" to symbolise peace and friendship. Chairman Mao Zedong famously gave a pair, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, to visiting U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972.
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