I have never met a panda, but I don’t respect them. In fact, I would venture to say that they are the bear I respect the very least. Generally, I have a lot of time for bears. I admire the way they blur the line between biped and quadruped. I admire, hugely, the way they fish. I’m interested in them. Not that long ago, I found myself googling the phrase “do bears have thumbs?” (No.) But the panda, I don’t respect him at all. I’m not fooled by his face, spray-painted into that perpetual, plaintive simper. He’s a loser. He’s on the way out

This isn’t some beleaguered Yangtze dolphin we are talking about. They have been given every chance. Nature just doesn’t want to make pandas. Pandas don’t even want to make pandas, even when there is nothing else to do. Why? Who knows. Newborn, they look like the crime that sticks out of a flasher’s raincoat. This may have something to do with it.

Panda diplomacy. That says it all. China has tigers, too. But no, it’s the panda they ship off around the world, to represent their country, and slump and simper and expensively not have sex. Because the panda will stand for it. Because he’s a loser.

Still, this has been a great week in the world of pandas. Gu Gu is a giant panda at Beijing zoo. On Tuesday a teenage boy called Li Xitao climbed into his panda pen and Gu Gu bit him, quite savagely. Now, the interesting thing about this is that this same panda was last in the news a year ago, when another man climbed into his pen. On that occasion, Gu Gu was bitten. That is to say, 2006: Man Bites Panda; 2007: Panda Bites Man.

Obviously, this is huge progress, both for this panda and all pandas. One small bite for a panda, one giant gnash for pandakind. With the greatest of respect to poor Li Xitao, who is apparently still in hospital and really rather badly hurt, Gu Gu had some work to do. Only a year ago, when man bit panda, man got away with it. Zhang Xinyan, who was drunk, leapt into the pen, tried to give the panda a hug, got into an altercation and settled it with his teeth. And lived to tell the tale. That should not have been possible. Forget the bamboo diet and the stupid face. Gu Gu is still a six-foot bear. Pathetic.

Well, finally the pandas are fighting back. Although, and this is worrying me, are they really? Might this not just be the latest incarnation of panda diplomacy from a new, muscular China? How much do we really know about what has or has not occurred inside Beijing zoo?

Could it be that, rather than sending out their actual pandas, the Chinese are now sending out tales of panda brutality? Perhaps they want us to fear the panda. Perhaps they want us to realise it has teeth.

Either way, it is good news for the pandas. Finally, Gu Gu can stand up tall. Finally, he is a bear of whom his children can be proud. Or he would be, if he could be bothered to have any.

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