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ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS AND CASE STUDIES: Diplomats and Refugees: Panda Diplomacy, Soft “Cuddly” Power, and the New Trajectory in Panda Conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Kathleen Carmel Buckingham ,
Jonathan Neil William David  and
Paul Jepson
Kathleen Carmel Buckingham*
Affiliation:
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Jonathan Neil William David
Affiliation:
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Paul Jepson
Affiliation:
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
*
Kathleen Carmel Buckingham, University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom; (e-mail) [email protected]
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Abstract

China's practice of gifting and loaning giant pandas has been given new impetus as a result of damage to panda-conservation facilities caused by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and China's rise as an economic power. We suggest that a new, third phase of panda diplomacy is under way that is distinct from the previous two. Phase 1 during the Mao era (in the 1960s and 1970s) took the form of China gifting pandas to build strategic friendships. Phase 2 followed Deng Xiaoping's rise to power in 1978 when gifts became gift loans involving a capitalist lease model based on financial transactions. In the emerging phase 3, panda loans are associated with nations supplying China with valuable resources and technology and symbolize China's willingness to build guanxi—namely, deep trade relationships characterized by trust, reciprocity, loyalty, and longevity. Notable is the correlation of guanxi loan deals with nations supplying resources and technologies to China in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake in panda habitat. As captive breeding resumes with the completion of repairs to the earthquake-damaged Wolong Breeding center, we predict that panda diplomacy will increase and that panda conservation, more than ever, will be the outcome of a complex, dynamic interplay among politics, markets, and conservation science.

Environmental Practice 15:262–270 (2013)

Type
Features
Information
Environmental Practice , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 262 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © National Association of Environmental Professionals 2013 

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