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From The Times
January 7, 2006

Fur flies as panda diplomacy is followed up with a warning

By Clifford Coonan
China opened its latest round of panda diplomacy yesterday by offering Taiwan two of the gentle creatures as a token of goodwill.

However, the gesture was followed by a broadside that accused President Chen of Taiwan of increasing cross-strait tensions by advocating independence for the island. Taiwanese officials were furious. Joseph Wu, the Cabinet official who is in charge of relations with the mainland, said: “It looks like they insisted on sending them to us, and we have no choice but to accept them. It shows severe disrespect to us.”

Beijing has a long history of exporting pandas to score diplomatic points. It notably impressed President Nixon by sending a pair of the animals to Washington in 1972.

China has chosen one-year-old pandas for Taiwan, and their names will be selected in a drawn-out competition that will keep the Taiwan question high on people’s minds. Whether the animals are accepted is up to Mr Chen.

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