About pandas: how to influence the world, if you have paws.

The story of the fate of a large panda - a species that is a subject for adoration and a national symbol of the PRC.

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Meet - Joe White & Black.

In the mountains of Sichuan province and in the expanses of Tibet, one of the rarest mammals of the earth lives, the species that has become an integral part of Chinese culture is a large panda or PinYin (熊猫 [xióngmāo]) which literally translates as "cat bear". For a cat, of course, pandas are thick, but they just adore climbing trees much more than walking.

It would seem that dragging a 160-kilogram body is easier on the floor than trying to plant it on top of bamboo. But the panda is a bear of contradictions as if trying to argue with nature itself every now and then.

What's up maaan?!

The species "big panda", despite the name, is not pandas as it is not included in the family of such pandas. This was due to the fact that the animal possesses two biological species: the raccoon and bear breeds and at the same time has a dozen "personal", unique features that served in the main as the ground for conflicts in the scientific community.

Disputes about the true origin of the animal have been held for so long that it was even planned to single out a personal family under the slanting ones. Consensus was reached only in 2007 when according to the results of a series of genetic studies, it was decided to assign a large panda to a bear family. At the same time the closest relatives of the panda were found similar biologically but geographically impossible - spectacled bears.

Like a bear a large panda belongs to a predatory order in which being potentially omnivorous creatures, 90-99% of the nutritional diet of the Chinese black and white bear is the stems and leaves of bamboo. With such a diet to saturate a daily adult needs about 30 kilograms of bamboo and the intake of this amount of food will last about 16 hours. In fact, all his life a large panda eats, breaking away from this lesson only during sleep. Despite the bear family, the Chinese relative does not allow any seasonal hibernation.

Panda in natural environment of devouring

Pandas in Chinese culture.

Since the reign of the Jin Dynasty and to this day the pandas symbolize peace, harmony and mutual assistance.

The very earliest mention of a large panda appears already in the time of ancient China, around 45 -90 BC. They are described as a fearless predator, embodying courage, courage and masculinity. And in the "Catalog of mountains and seas" - the oldest treatise of the Doñin period - it is said that the panda is a bear-like mystic beast of black and white color with incredibly sharp teeth and it feeds on ... copper and iron!

Pandas left a significant mark in the development of Chinese culture, for example it is the image of the panda that is reflected in the dogmatic concepts of the duality of the philosophy of yin and yang and in Taoism and Confucianism he did at the heart of the teaching as the embodiment of an independent life and an outstanding personality.

Over time the panda as a symbol will acquire a multitude of meanings which will be based on sincerity, striving for balance, tolerance and kindness. Together with this everyone wants to find something in the panda: some will see reasonable vegetarianism, other fragility of the Earth. For many the image of the panda will serve as a talisman that preserves youth and health. The only thing that remains unchanged is the tradition of honoring the object of adoration from generation to generation. The peak of manifestation of such innate love will be the beginning of the twentieth century when the panda will be recognized as a national symbol of the Celestial Empire.
This event rightfully could be called a triumph in the history of the existence of the species, but...

The fact is that as long as the inhabitants of China did their best to study the sacred meanings of the pandas the rest of the world until the second half of the 19th century did not even know about the existence of such an animal.

The first who brought knowledge of pandas to Europe was the French missionary who studied wild animals of China, Jean-Pierre Arman David. In 1869 he will bring and give the Paris Museum of Natural History the skin of an unknown black and white animal, looking at which the scientific council after a thorough examination will make a statement that an animal with such color in nature can not exist.

The panda was believed in reality only after the bear's skeleton was provided. But the only possible way to see the "bamboo bear" was to travel to China. And this will continue for almost 100 years, until China is concerned about the establishment of international relations.

Panda goes out into the world.

Or how the bear turned out to be an excellent diplomat.

The 1950s became a turning point and the practice of international relations of those years later changed the world forever. At the same time China was going through a difficult period: after the civil war the country was in decline, the educated People's Republic of China needed the approval of other countries on the world stage.

Suddenly pandas came to help in this matter. The practice of donating pandas to improve relations existed in China since the time of the dynasties.

Diplomacy of pandas - so in the subsequent was named a public process of establishing relations and cooperation between states through "diplomatic gifts." In the case of China pandas performed as gifts.

This practice will be actively used in the PRC in the period from 1957 to 1983. In total 23 pandas of the diplomat will be sent for the whole period of existence and each among the bamboo diplomats perfectly coped with the mission entrusted to him. But there was also one thing here: too many did not fall into the original conditions for the exchange of "diplomatic gifts." And in the first years a panda-gift could only be received by countries friendly to socialist China. As a result the first panda diplomat or "communist panda" as a gift from the Chinese state then received the USSR on the day of the 40th anniversary of the victory of the October Revolution.

At the beginning of the pandas-diplomatic program, no one believed in a successful outcome in Western relations, many times China had to refuse potentially interested countries in political gifts. Only by 1970 the PRC softened its position with regard to these countries and two years later in February 1972 a meeting of the country's head and US President Richard Nixon took place in China. Its main result will subsequently be the two big pandas donated by China to the US. This meeting will be called "the week that changed the world," and it is the practice panda that will play a significant role in establishing a dialogue between China and the United States.

First lady of the USA in the zoo of Beijing.

In general the system worked on hurray, the world was in love with a bamboo bear, the relationship was getting better, zoos were drowning in profits and other countries looked and so wanted. Everything would be fine if it were not for a coincidence.

Saving (rent?) Private Panda: the transformation of panda-diplomacy.

In 1983 massive bamboo deaths occur in China which combined with the production of trees in the pandas, worsen the living conditions which leads to a sharp decline in the number of animals. The loss totals 150 individuals. The whole species is threatened with extinction.

Urgent measures were required and then the People's Republic of China makes a move to the horse: taking advantage of the still not cooled interest in pandas, the country takes a number of totalitarian and ambiguous decisions to prevent the threat of extinction; however, many will later find their actions exceptionally political: China announced the introduction of total control over pandas.

To regulate the number of the national treasure, there were no more panda gifts, but now the country interested in the panda can take the bear for rent (this possibility exists to this day).

How and under what conditions does it work:

• All the big pandas of the world are officially the property of the Chinese state.
• Other countries can take a panda exclusively for ten years.
• The cost of this pleasure is about ~ 1 million (possibly more) dollars. And the rent of a panda includes compulsory observance of the list of rules: from the requirements for the conditions of keeping the animal (for example, for each panda a panda committee is represented), right up to the rights to the captive pandyon (at the age of 4, he must be handed over to the Chinese side).
• Do not forget about the fines, they are assumed in case of death or illness of the animal in the current lease period.
• Each new content of the animal in the lease is agreed with the Chinese Committee for Large Panda Breeding Technologies and is under their supervision.
• In turn, China pays countries creditors grants for contributions to the development of research.

This is not all control over pandas and in China there are a number of laws providing for criminal liability up to the death penalty in case of harm to pandas. And for the bears many organizations follow for them a census of the "population" is conducted and there are various panda institutions and so on.

And it really works.

At least, according to statistics, everything is good for a panda: over the past 10 years, the number of large pandas has increased by 300 individuals which excluded them from the Red Book as an "endangered species", which means that the centuries-old history of the bamboo bear has a chance to continue.

And such a chance for a "history" should be given to any biological species.

They are so cute.