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Monday, May 05, 2008
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China, Japan and the panda diplomacy

Japan now has eight giant pandas, all on loan from China

Beijing: China and Japan are considering a joint research on pandas, the endangered species, which has stood witness to the see-saw relations between the two Asian neighbours.

On Sunday, Chinese President Hu Jintao, ahead of his five-day state visit to Japan beginning Tuesday, said China was considering a joint research with Japan on pandas.

Japan has requested China to send a pair of pandas for research cooperation, Mr. Hu said during an interaction with Japanese reporters. “We understand the Japanese peoples aspiration,” he added, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

‘Panda presents’

The two countries have a history of ‘panda presents’ to mark normalisation of their relations.

Mr. Hu’s statement comes after the recent death of Ling Ling, a giant panda given by China to Japan in 1992, in exchange for a Japanese-born panda cub to mark the 20th anniversary of the normalisation of Sino-Japanese relations.

With the death of Ling Ling, born in the Beijing Zoo in 1985, Japan now has eight giant pandas, all on loan from China, which donated Lan Lan and Kang Kang as the first pair to commemorate the normalisation of bilateral ties in 1972.

China has about 1,590 pandas living in wilderness mainly in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and another 239 are in captivity. — PTI

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