The two giant pandas China promised to give Taiwan are expected to make their appearance at Taipei Zoo around the Lunar New Year holiday. However, the animals remain controversial for many because of the import/export permits and the downgrading of Taiwan’s sovereignty the process could entail.
Beijing offered Taiwan the two pandas — Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), which together means “unification” — during former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) visit to China in 2005. However, the arrival of the pandas was delayed because of the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s objections.
The DPP government rejected the offer because China considered the export of the pandas a “domestic transfer” between zoos and was therefore an affront to Taiwan’s sovereignty.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The Council of Agriculture approved the import shortly after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, choosing Taipei City Zoo to house them.
Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) on Thursday formally announced that Beijing would send the pandas to Taiwan soon. However, both Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) declined to reveal the date of arrival and refused to discuss the name Taiwan had used to apply for the import permit.
“The SEF is still discussing the details of the export of the pandas to Taiwan with the ARATS. We will announce the details as soon as the plan is finalized,” Lai said in a press conference on Friday.
Importing the pandas is subject to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international treaty that protects endangered and threatened plant and animal species from overexploitation by regulating their trade. Taiwan and China are required to obtain import and export permits from CITES before the delivery of the pandas can be carried out.
Lai said documents concerning the import of the pandas would be filed according to the Wildlife Protection Act (野生動物保育法).
As pandas are listed as an Appendix I animal in CITES and are endangered animals prohibited from being traded commercially, China has been giving pandas to other countries on a lease. Zoos that house pandas are required to pay China US$1 million a year for “renting” the animals.
Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said the zoo was exempt from the fee as the pandas were offered in the name of “animal exchange.”
The SEF and ARATS held a ceremony to announce China’s offer of the pandas and Chinese Dove Trees to Taiwan. In return, Taiwan will give China one pair of Formosan sika deer and a pair of Formosan serow, a horned goat-like animal.
Yeh acknowledged that the biggest difficulty in accepting the pandas was the name used to apply for the import permit.
“We prefer to apply for the permit based on a state-to-state model, rather than as a province of China, but the issue will be determined by the SEF and ARATS,” he said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) accused the government and the zoo of dodging the issue of Taiwan’s status in accepting the pandas and belittling the nation’s sovereignty, and shared his concerns that the zoo would focus its efforts on the pandas at the detriment of other animals.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said the zoo had budgeted NT$39 million (US$1.2 million) next year to care for the pandas. The substantial amount and the attention given to the pandas could have a negative effect on the care of other animals in the zoo.
Yeh said the zoo’s efforts to take good care of all the animals would not be affected by the arrival of the pandas.
The zoo has spent NT$300 million building a three-story panda exhibition hall, and budgeted NT$1.02 million every year to purchase bamboo as the pandas eat about 40kg of it every day.
Yeh said the pandas were likely to arrive in Taiwan next month and would be quarantined for 30 days before making their first appearance.
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