Two pandas play together at a breeding centre in the Chinese province of Sichuan. Photograph: Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images
Of all the tricks and bribes governments can use to acquire each others favour, the giving of pandas is one of the most shameless.
The principle is simple enough: everyone loves pandas. They lie around munching on bamboo and look like real life cuddly toys. They will never embarrass you by having sex.
Aware of human weakness for the bears, China sometimes takes advantage of its monopoly on the world's panda population to make gifts of them to a government it wants to look on it more favourably.
There are instances of Chinese emperors sending pandas to Japan in the seventh century, but the modern incarnation of panda diplomacy is usually dated back to 1972 and Richard Nixon's historic meeting with Chairman Mao. The US president left on that occasion with Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing for the US national zoo.
The gift was a success. Until Hsing-Hsing's death in 1999 an estimated three million people a year came to see the bears – representing not just one of the world's most endangered species, but also friendship between Beijing and Washington. If China wanted to show a softer side to the US, it certainly beat the Cultural Revolution.
Beijing followed with the gift of Yen-Yen to France in 1973. Throughout the later part of the cold war, when China considered the Soviet Union a threat, the giving of pandas became its ultimate diplomatic gesture to such an extent it makes you wonder why Soviet leader Leonid Breznev never thought of endearing Moscow to the world with snow leopards.
The latest piece of panda diplomacy, the offer of two bears to Taiwan, breaks the trend a little since it is not a place Beijing recognises as a country. Governing party MPs in Taiwan are worried that since the pandas are hardly a de facto recognition of sovereignty (China passed a law last month authorising war on Taiwan if it declared independence) there may be strings attached, such as Beijing insisting Taiwan accept the pandas as a local Chinese government rather than as a self-governing entity.
For some pro-independence politicians, there is a clear case to fear the Chinese even when they are bearing gifts. "Our lovely next generation is more important than these two lovely animals," said ruling party MP Hsu Kuo-yung.
But not all are so restrained. A spokeswoman for the anti-independence opposition testified to the allure of the gift when she excitedly suggested naming the bears He-He and Ping-Ping, names that mean "peace" when put together. Taipei's mayor, Ma Ying-jeou, suggested the names Bian-Bian and Lien-Lien in honour of Taiwan's president and vice president. One can only hope that such brown-nosing is not all it takes to get ahead in Taiwan.
The president himself, Chen Shui-bian, offered a diplomatic response to the attempt at panda diplomacy. He said all that mattered to him was that Taiwan would have to respect international treaties on protected wildlife. That was a good way of not giving an answer.
Beijing has worked to up the environmental standards of its panda diplomacy since 1984 – loaning the animals for 10 years and insisting all cubs belong to China – but you do not need to look hard to still find problems with the scheme. Putting an endangered animal to political ends, one which is notoriously bad at adapting to new surroundings, is not a bad place to start.
According to Machiavelli, the path to power decrees that moral principles must give way to the dictates of pure expediency. It works the same with pandas.
