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Pandas ready for “unity” trip to Taiwan

— PHOTO: Xinhua

Panda diplomacy: A caretaker feeds Yuan Yuan, one of the two pandas to be sent by China to Taiwan, at a breeding base in Ya’an, Sichuan Province, on Sunday.

TAIPEI: Two giant pandas will make their long-anticipated and highly-scrutinised trip from China to Taiwan this week, sealing a year of blossoming diplomatic ties between the countries.

The relocation of the four-year-old pair, whose names together symbolise unity, comes amid hopes on both sides that the goodwill gesture will be matched by an increased willingness to work towards warmer cross-Straits relations. A Taiwanese delegation is to fly to the pandas’ home in southwest China’s Sichuan on Monday and return to Taiwan with them the following day. The two pandas, “Tuan Tuan” and “Yuan Yuan,” are at a research centre in Ya’an, where they have lived since being evacuated from the Wolong reserve after an earthquake damaged the centre in May. “Tuanyuan” — a combination of the characters making up the two pandas’ names — means “reunion” or “unity” in Chinese.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin has hailed the pair’s arrival as “a major step in the development of cross-Straits ties,” saying he expects the pandas to attract more than 6 million visitors annually to the zoo. The city will hold a welcoming ceremony for the pandas on Wednesday, even though the star attractions will not be on show — instead starting a 30-day quarantine period, said Mr. Hau’s spokesman Yang Hsiao-tung.

The bears are expected to be unveiled during the Lunar New Year holidays starting January 25, if they complete the quarantine with a clean bill of health, he said. The city has invested $10 million for the bears.

China on Sunday unveiled a 10-point economic aid package to help Taiwanese firms weather the financial crisis. The measures include the support for the development of Taiwanese-funded companies and promotion of two-way investment, said Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the ruling Communist Party of China.

To improve the financing for Taiwanese-funded enterprises, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China recently decided to offer $7.3 billion each, to finance Taiwanese-funded enterprises in 2-3 years. — Agencies

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