China’s Panda diplomacy tested as fight erupts over Fu Bao

Beijing is accused of mistreating Fu Bao, a recently returned female panda from South Korea. The 4-year-old panda has a following in South Korea akin to a pop star, with merchandise, online fan groups and even birthday billboards.

The unprecedented backlash threatens the potency of one of China’s few unassailable tools of soft power. The controversy over Fu Bao comes at a sensitive time for China, with relations between the U.S. and its allies strained over trade disputes, military aggression around Taiwan and Beijing’s support for Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

For decades, the world seemed to have agreed to leave partisanship out of pandas. The only major flashpoint in recent years has come over the deaths of pandas at zoos in Thailand and Memphis, which raised suspicions of mistreatment and caused public outrage in China.

But this week, fans of Fu Bao cried foul. Helping channel the condemnation was La Kyong-min, a 25-year-old office worker in Seoul. She co-runs South Korea’s largest online community of supporters for the Korea-born Fu Bao, who had resided at a theme park and zoo owned by Samsung.

Fu Bao returned to China in early April and now resides at a state-run panda sanctuary in the province of Sichuan.

“Fu Bao is perhaps like the Ariana Grande of pandas," La said, “or any other Hollywood star who appeared like a comet and shot up to stardom in a short period of time."

Fans of Fu Bao were first alarmed after seeing footage of her arrival at the airport in Chengdu, China. Footage appeared to show an individual poking the panda with their bare fingers through an air hole in her glass-encased cage—a move her supporters claimed risks infection. China later responded that the individual was a veterinarian whose hands had been disinfected in advance.

More recently, people in South Korea, China and elsewhere were troubled over zoomed-in images taken from a livestream feed run by the panda sanctuary that appeared to show Fu Bao’s patchy fur. Her fans claimed that another video circulating on Chinese social media showed a panda, purportedly Fu Bao, getting shown off to an audience, with one spectator even making contact. The veracity of the video couldn’t be confirmed.

The China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, which oversees the facility, said it had verified that “no unauthorized individuals" had touched, fed or photographed the panda, according to a recent post on social media.

Supporters took further action by flooding the email inboxes of nonprofits and media outlets. A Change.org petition, uploaded by “FOR FUBAO," has attracted roughly 75,000 signatures since opening. They also raised funds to rent a truck that stopped in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul with a sign that flashed the words in English: “Love Fu Bao, No Abuse, Yes Respect." The leftover money may go toward an advertisement on Times Square in New York, said La, who is a co-operator of the fan group.

In apparent response, the operator of the panda sanctuary invited local media earlier this week to observe Fu Bao and released videos of the panda eating apple slices and walking in a grassy yard. The operator said Fu Bao has no health issues and promised to make her available to the public in the coming weeks.

“Fu Bao, the first giant panda born in South Korea, has been adapting well to local bamboo and other aspects of a new life at a nature reserve," China’s state-run CCTV said.

Countries no longer view China’s diplomatic moves, including those related to pandas, with an assumption of goodwill, as relations with Beijing have deteriorated in recent years,  said Ho-fung Hung, a political-economy professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on Chinese politics. “Many countries would assume the worst intentions behind whatever China is doing now," Hung said.

Over the decades China has won international acclaim for sending hundreds of pandas overseas. Hosting zoos typically pay roughly $1 million a year for a pair of black-and-white bears, with the proceeds supporting China’s panda-conservation efforts, according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service. At that time, about 22 zoos in 18 countries had Chinese pandas.

As part of the panda-loan contract, new cubs born abroad must be sent back to China by around the age of four. That was Fu Bao’s story, whose parents were a pair of pandas that Chinese President Xi Jinping gifted to South Korea during a 2014 visit.

In the final days before Fu Bao’s departure, her South Korean fans waited more than six hours to catch a glimpse. Her departure on a rainy April day attracted a crowd of roughly 6,000 fans, who waved goodbye as the truck transporting her pulled away.

Despite the dispute surrounding Fu Bao, China’s panda diplomacy appears to be undeterred. On Wednesday, the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. announced an agreement to bring two new pandas from China next year. The first lady, Jill Biden, appeared in a video uploaded by the zoo while holding up a panda doll.

“It’s official. The pandas are coming back to D.C.," she said.

Yang Jie and Clarence Leong contributed to this article.

 

 

Write to Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com