China's 'panda diplomacy' in focus at key time in relations with Japan
By Keita Nakamura
China's "panda diplomacy" is drawing renewed attention with Japan's first zero giant panda moment in over half a century approaching, amid an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry that could provide an incentive for Beijing to stabilize its oft-strained ties with Tokyo.
China's decisions on leasing the bear species abroad are usually revealed in high-level bilateral talks. Foreign affairs experts say a new loan may be announced late fall this year during a possible visit by a Chinese political leader to Japan, though they doubt the gesture will carry the same diplomatic weight as it once did.
Since the first black-and-white animal arrived in Japan in 1972 to commemorate the normalization of diplomatic ties, Chinese pandas have become beloved by the Japanese public, bringing major economic benefits as tourist attractions.
The two governments have embraced the bamboo-munching iconic animal's role as a symbol of friendship. China last sent pandas to Japan in February 2011, based on a deal struck at a meeting between then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao in Tokyo in May 2008.
Currently, Japan is home to six pandas, all of which were born domestically but owned by China. Four at the Adventure World leisure complex in the western Japanese town of Shirahama will be handed over to China next Saturday, ahead of the expiration of their loan period in August.
The other two at Tokyo's Ueno Zoological Gardens are also due to return to China next February.
Emi Mifune, a Komazawa University professor well-versed in Chinese diplomacy, believes China will rent out new pandas instead to Japan as Beijing is "in the middle of an escalating confrontation with the United States and needs to mend relations" with Tokyo.
China's relationship with the United States has been cooling in recent years, as Washington maintains a hard-line stance toward China, renewed by tariff-fueled trade salvos by President Donald Trump who returned to the White House in January.
She also said Beijing's agreement with Tokyo in late May to begin procedures to resume importing Japanese marine products indicates that China is making visible efforts to improve the relationship, something that a new panda allocation would support.
China imposed a ban on Japanese seafood imports in August 2023 in opposition to the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.
The Asian neighbors have long been at loggerheads over historical and territorial issues, including a dispute over the Tokyo-controlled, Beijing-claimed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. China's increasing military activities in the Indo-Pacific region have only stoked tensions.
China has long used the panda as a tool of diplomatic outreach and goodwill toward various nations, including the United States, Russia, Australia and South Korea among others.
With an eye on fostering "an atmosphere of improving bilateral ties," China may announce a new panda loan, perhaps during the next meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mifune speculated.
Japan hopes to host a summit with China and South Korea later this year in Tokyo, and Ishiba-Li talks are expected to take place on the sidelines.
During a China trip as leader of a business delegation in early June, Yohei Kono, the former Japanese House of Representatives speaker, met with Li and floated the idea of the high-ranking Chinese official bringing pandas with him to Japan.
While calling on Japan to promote cooperation to address "challenges posed to the world," such as "U.S. tariff measures," Li told Kono he attaches "great importance" to the panda request as "an important proposal," according to a delegation member.
However, on Sept. 3 China will mark 80 years since it declared victory in its 1937-1945 War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, making diplomatic outreach in the approaching period challenging, Mifune said.
Mifune also pointed out that China may be unwilling to send pandas to Adventure World in Shirahama during the tenure of the town's pro-Taiwan Mayor Yasuhiro Oe, who took office in May last year in a move that might have led to the four panda's repatriation ahead of schedule.
Oe, a former House of Councillors member, has deep ties with Taiwan, with which the Japanese government only maintains unofficial relations.
China sees the self-ruled democratic island as a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Adventure World has engaged in a collaborative project to breed the animal, now classified as "vulnerable" on the global list of at-risk species, with China since 1994.
Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman's Christian University, said that China has used pandas not as a tool to demand other nations "give ground" on bilateral issues, but as a signal that the attitude toward Beijing in the recipient nation is "right and friendly."
"Even if China were to give Japan some pandas, it would not mean that Japan has to do a lot of things for it," but how the Japanese public reacts to the arrival of new pandas will matter to Beijing, he said.
Ienaga is also skeptical that a new panda loan will have any tangible impact on the Japanese government's diplomatic posture toward China or Japanese public opinion about its neighbor.
"Japanese society no longer really looks at pandas through a political lens," as opposed to in 1972 when the animals were accepted "genuinely as a symbol of friendship," Ienaga added.
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