These days, Malaysia's most enchanting
celebrities are a furry, four-legged couple with black and white patches who
just eat and sleep all day.
They
are Xing Xing and Liang Liang, or "Prosperity" and "Pretty"
in Mandarin, two giant pandas that are on loan to Malaysia for the next 10
years.
The
loan is part of the Chinese government's renowned "panda diplomacy"
programme and is meant to commemorate 40 years of Sino-Malaysian relations.
It
comes at a time when some issues threaten to strain ties between the states -
territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the disappearance of Malaysia
Airlines Flight MH370 in March with 239 people including 153 Chinese nationals
on board.
Before
becoming China's newest and cuddliest diplomats, Xing Xing and Liang Liang were
already celebrities as they were among the eight pandas on display at the 2008
Beijing Olympics.
"That
makes them all the more precious and signify the special relationship that
China and Malaysia have," Nursolehah Abdul Rahim, Zoo Negara's public
affairs head, told The Straits Times.
For the
furry pair, it has been star treatment all the way.
Upon
flying in from Chengdu, China, on May 21 aboard a chartered plane, they were
greeted at the airport by Chinese Ambassador Huang Huikang and Malaysian
government officials.
At Zoo
Negara, located in a leafy suburb near the city centre, the pandas live in a
1.6ha conservation and exhibition centre with a price tag of 25 million ringgit
(US$7.8 million).
It is
equipped with, among other things, air conditioning with controlled
temperatures of 18-24 deg C.
The
30kg load of bamboo the pandas eat daily is handpicked from swamps in the
outskirts of Selangor state.
Zookeepers
also feed them "panda cakes" - a mixture of corn, soybeans, calcium
pills, eggs, salt and sugar that is baked for four hours.
Nursolehah
said after the panda centre opened to the public on June 28, the zoo's visitor
numbers jumped fourfold in the June 28-29 weekend with a combined figure of
about 4,000.
This is
not surprising as giant pandas, an endangered species native to China, are a
rare sight outside the country.
Malaysia
is just one of 14 countries that have pandas on loan from the Chinese
government.
Negotiations
for the loan of pandas can take years and taking care of them is not cheap. But
nations have gladly welcomed giant pandas as a signal of improved ties with an
ascendant China.
For
Malaysia, the diplomatic gift also marks the fact that it was the first
Southeast Asian nation to establish ties with China in 1974 when the communist
state still had a closed-door policy.
Then
prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein - the father of current premier Najib Razak
- made a historic visit to Beijing that year after several years of diplomatic
courtship through hand-delivered letters to Chinese officials.
Razak
had thought ties with China would bolster Malaysia's diplomatic standing
globally and prevent the young nation from being seen too Western-leaning.
Today,
China is Malaysia's largest trade partner with trade hitting a record high of
US$106 billion last year.
Among
the pacts signed recently are those for a Chinese-built industrial park in
Pahang and a university campus and property development projects in Johor.
However,
China's increasing assertiveness over its overlapping territorial claims in the
South China Sea has caused rising tensions in the region.
Also,
the failure so far to find Flight MH370 has caused a backlash among Chinese
nationals in recent months, with Chinese tourist arrivals to Malaysia having
fallen drastically.
Dr Oh
Ei Sun, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in
Singapore, said both issues can be resolved in time.
"The
MH370 incident is but an aberration in the otherwise extremely cordial
relationship, while the territorial disputes will most likely culminate in some
forms of joint exploitation of the resources," he told The Straits Times.
"I
think Malaysia can strike the balance well and convincingly" between
maintaining good ties with China and not compromising on Asean's collective
stance on the territorial disputes, he said.
In the
meantime, the arrival of the furry ambassadors has dispelled the slight unease
in ties for now, having created a stir among Malaysians.
"I
am so excited as this is the first time I am seeing them live," said
college student Amira Ahmad, 20, after taking photographs of female panda Liang
Liang. "I am definitely coming back to see them."
Yong
Yen Nie
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
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