The Chinese closely monitor the lives of pandas sent abroad. In social media, panda diplomacy is sometimes commented on, even haphazardly.
17:59•Updated 18:33
BEIJING The decision of the Ähtäri zoo to return the pandas Lumi and Pyry back to their homeland did not make headlines in China. The state news agency Xinhua reported the matter briefly, after which various media reported on the matter in a matter-of-fact tone.
The Chinese Society for the Protection of Nature and Wildlife, which is responsible for the pandas, said on the instant messaging service WeChat that preparations for Lum and Pyry’s return to their homeland are starting.
On Weibo, the country’s most popular social media application, the topic “Finnish zoo sends giant pandas back” gathered almost two million views and 788 comments by evening.
The comments were generally neutral. Snow and Pyry were welcomed home. The return of the pandas was described, among other things, as an understandable decision. One commenter praised the Finns for keeping China’s natural treasures in good condition.
Lum and Pyry’s steps are followed on Chinese social media
Lumi and Pyry have been followed on Chinese social media since 2018, when they moved to Ähtäri.
The animals were born in China in a reserve, as well as more than 50 other pandas that China has leased abroad in recent years.
More than 2,000 pandas live in the wild in China. There are over 600 pandas in zoos around the world.
The financial concerns of Ähtäri Zoo have been known in China. In the Weibo discussions that took place earlier this summer, it was praised that Finns inform about their money worries instead of hiding them and endangering the health of animals.
– Better to honestly send home. If the Finnish zoo cannot keep the animals, they must be returned to China. Pandas are China’s national treasures, one commenter wrote.
China gives pandas as gifts and for rent
Pandas have been an important policy tool for China since 1957. At that time, for the first time, they were sent abroad as a gift to the Soviet Union, which was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. In 1965, China donated Panda to North Korea.
Actual panda diplomacy started to be talked about when the US president Richard Nixon visited Beijing in 1972 and the countries established diplomatic relations. Nixon took two pandas with him to the United States.
Rental pandas like Lum and Pyry are jokingly referred to as “business travelers” in China. There has been no uproar in China regarding the pandas given as political gifts, but shortcomings have been revealed in the conditions of business travelers.
The protest led to Panda’s return
So far, the most serious case has been YaYa, who lived in the Memphis Zoo in the United States.
In 2022, a video showing a starving and dirty giant panda went viral on social media. The video caused widespread shock in China. The protest led to YaYa’s return from the United States to her homeland last year.
Last summer in China, attention was also paid to a panda living in the Seoul Zoo in South Korea, who looked too thin in the eyes of the Chinese.
In the social media that followed, the Koreans, on the other hand, accused the Chinese of fattening the pandas and petting them too much.