First and foremost, this article taught me that China does not give pandas to other countries, instead they allow us to lease them for a number of years. The number of years is usually worked out between the Chinese and the recipient government, but one factor remains the same for all countries -- each loaned panda comes at the hefty price of $1 million dollars per year.
China first became to realize that they could use the gifting of pandas to foreign countries as a way to exert soft power over countries that they wished to established political relationships with. Interestingly enough, this article discusses the gifting of a panda cub to his hopeful mother- Angela Merkel, leader of Germany. This gift from China was anything but altruistic, as China hopes to cement a relationship with Merkel as the new face of the Western world.
In my opinion, it is interesting to see how China has began to use an animal on the endangered specie list as a form of soft power. China has more than doubled the number of bears in captivity, and scientists begin to worry about the breeding numbers in comparison to the number of bears that live in the wild. As the US continues to lose leverage in the international community under our current leader, it will be fascinating to see how major world powers play politics amongst each other.
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