The zoo, which declined to comment on the online misinformation, held the party to bid farewell to the bears and their three-year-old cub Xiao Qi Ji, who will be returning to China in December as its contract with the Chinese government expires.
Another panda named Ya Ya was returned to China by the Memphis Zoo in April after its loan agreement ended. This followed uproar from Chinese activists and social media users who accused the zoo of abusing her.
Many also blamed the zoo for the death of Ya Ya’s mate, Le Le, with accusations swirling online – despite no evidence – that zookeepers had stabbed the bear and sold his eyeball.
The zoo vigorously rejected what it said was “misinformation”. The Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens also backed the zookeepers, saying in a joint statement that the bears at the Memphis zoo had received “excellent care”.
But that did little to quell the nationalist outrage.
“FAN THOSE FLAMES”
China’s state-linked Global Times, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, linked the controversy over Ya Ya to US-China geopolitical tensions.
“If this had not happened during a period when Washington is intensifying its containment and suppression of China, this matter would not have caused such a stir,” it said in an editorial in March.
Amid tense relations between the two biggest economies over issues such as Taiwan, US observers say the Chinese government appears keen to condone and encourage anti-American sentiment.
“Misinformation around panda treatment is an example of a convenient way to fan those flames,” Isaac Stone Fish, chief executive of China-focused data company Strategy Risks, told AFP.
The misinformation not only bred mistrust about the United States in China but also sparked fervent calls to suspend the panda exchange, potentially closing what DFRLab called one of the few avenues of cooperation between the two countries.
Aside from Washington and Memphis, the zoos in San Diego and Atlanta have either returned or are set to return their pandas to China by next year. Without China’s extension of the loan agreement, US zoos face the prospect of having no pandas for the first time in 50 years.
“This (misinformation) campaign is particularly sad given the ways in which ‘panda diplomacy’ previously played such a crucial role in helping to foster positive relations between China and the West,” Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University, told AFP.
It is, he added, “an unfortunate sign of the current state of relations between powers.”
Source: CNA
