Panda diplomacy revisited: state interests and public emotions

Abstract

Existing scholarship on China’s ‘panda diplomacy’ emphasises that it is a highly successful form of modern public diplomacy, whose intended effects are not to impress or placate rulers, but to encourage positive feelings among the publics of the receiving countries. In this paper, we show that it is not just the feelings of receiving publics that matter in panda diplomacy. When a country allows the transfer of an animal that serves as an emotionally potent national symbol, the feelings of the sending public also matter. We examine the recent case of the illness and death of a panda at Memphis Zoo that caused outrage on Chinese social media when disturbing photos of the apparently suffering animal were posted by an American animal rights group. The Chinese state did not join in the nationalist outrage, instead offering a measured response that exonerated the American zoo. While this response helps to maintain panda diplomacy as a tool, public outrage over the treatment of pandas in foreign countries is likely to arise again in the future. The panda is a uniquely vulnerable animal for a national symbol, and its vulnerability reflects an increasing sense of both human and environmental insecurity.