Panda diplomacy has deep roots in Malaysia
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China loans bears to commemorate 40 years of Sino-M'sian relations amid strained ties
These days, Malaysia’s most enchanting celebrities are a furry, four-legged couple with black and white patches who just eat and sleep all day.
They are Xing Xing and Liang Liang, or “Prosperity” and “Pretty” in Mandarin, two giant pandas that are on loan to Malaysia for the next 10 years.
The loan is part of the Chinese government’s renowned “panda diplomacy” programme and is meant to commemorate 40 years of Sino-Malaysian relations.
It comes at a time when some issues threaten to strain ties between the states – territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March with 239 people including 153 Chinese nationals on board.
Before becoming China’s newest and cuddliest diplomats, Xing Xing and Liang Liang were already celebrities as they were among the eight pandas on display at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“That makes them all the more precious and signify the special relationship that China and Malaysia have,” Nursolehah Abdul Rahim, Zoo Negara’s public affairs head, told The Straits Times.
For the furry pair, it has been star treatment all the way.
Upon flying in from Chengdu, China, on May 21 aboard a chartered plane, they were greeted at the airport by Chinese Ambassador Huang Huikang and Malaysian government officials.
At Zoo Negara, located in a leafy suburb near the city centre, the pandas live in a 1.6 hectare conservation and exhibition centre with a price tag of 25 million ringgit (Bt252 million).
It is equipped with, among other things, air conditioning with controlled temperatures of 18-24 degrees C.
The 30kg load of bamboo the pandas eat daily is handpicked from swamps in the outskirts of Selangor state.
Zookeepers also feed them “panda cakes” – a mixture of corn, soybeans, calcium pills, eggs, salt and sugar that is baked for four hours.
Nursolehah said that after the panda centre opened to the public on June 28, the zoo’s visitor numbers jumped fourfold in the June 28-29 weekend with a combined figure of about 4,000.
This is not surprising as giant pandas, an endangered species native to China, are a rare sight outside the country.
Malaysia is just one of 14 countries that have pandas on loan from the Chinese government.
