One million dollars a year to China after all the panda of the world

Who would think that one of the most sweetest mammals in the world is one of China’s important diplomatic tools?

The giant panda is not only a bamboo rodent plush teddy bear but also serious political and economic games protagonist. Wherever you live in the world, a panda is officially owned by the Chinese state. And zoos cannot buy the animals, they can only rent them for $ 1 million a year, over $ 354 million. And If a puppy is born? It also has to pay $ 400,000 ($ 141 million) for the Zoo.

The history of pandas in Chinese diplomacy is not new. More than a thousand years ago, during the Tang Dynasty, they were given to foreign rulers. However, modern pandadiplomation began with Mao Ce-tung’s 1972 gesture when he donated two pandas to the United States, visiting President Richard Nixon. These animals soon became stars of the Washington Zoo and became a symbol of Chinese-American friendship.

In the seventies, China regularly donated pandas to Western and Japanese zoos, but since the 1980s, pandas were replaced by the rental system. Since 1984, it cannot be sold or given; Whoever needs it can rent it for $ 1 million a year for ten years.

Keeping pandas is not only costly because of the rent. In 2011, the Edinburgh Zoo spent £ 70,000 (£ 33.5 million) on its annual bamboo dose of two adults. In addition, your diet is extremely specific: you only eat fresh bamboo drives, which you consume up to 40 pounds a day. This nutritional habit makes it particularly expensive and difficult to keep.

The leasing of pandas for China is not only an economic but also a political tool. The country carefully selects who gives a black and white teddy bear, and it also indicates its diplomatic intentions. For example, a panda pair was sent to Russia in 2019, and President Xi Chin-ping personally participated in the transfer of animals with Vladimir Putin head of state. Qatar received his first panda in 2022, just when countless Chinese construction companies in the country were able to contract for the World Cup.

However, pandadiplomation does not always succeed. In Finland, for example, a couple named Lumi and Pyry arrived at the ähtäri zoo in 2018 after a Xi Chin-ping visited the country. Despite the 15-year lease agreement, the zoo decided in 2024 to return the animals to China. The reason: the maintenance costs were too high, with a year to EUR 1.5 million ($ 605 million), including the fee paid to China. The zoo also invested a lot of money in the design of the pandas habitat, but the expected number of visitors did not realize, partly because of the pandemic and inflation. The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the decision was a business decision on the park and did not affect the relationship between the two countries.

Currently about Fifty Panda lives in the world outside Chinaand the zoos that invest in them treat them as a real star. Not only the favorites of visitors, but also the sophisticated tools of the country diplomacy, with which Beijing gently but effectively enforces his interests worldwide.