China sends pandas to court Taiwan

TAIPEI - China sent two of its prized giant pandas to Taiwan yesterday, the latest installment in a charm offensive aimed at persuading the island's people to embrace their Communist rival.

Millions of Taiwanese watched the televised arrival of Tuan Tuan, a male panda, and his female companion, Yuan Yuan, at Taipei airport. The pandas, the first to inhabit the island, are typically loaned in pairs with the hope they will mate.

The giant panda is unique to China and is regularly sent abroad as a sign of warm diplomatic relations or to mark breakthroughs in ties. For more than five decades, Beijing has used panda diplomacy to make friends and influence people in countries ranging from the United States to the former Soviet Union.

The delivery to Taiwan - more than three years in the making - comes amid rapidly improving relations between Taiwan and China, which split amid civil war in 1949.

Only a week ago, they initiated daily air and direct maritime links across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, and several days later China agreed to loan $19 billion to mainland-based Taiwanese companies struggling to keep afloat in the global economic slowdown.

The moves underscore the determination of the Beijing government to take advantage of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's readiness to turn his back on his predecessor's contentious anti-China policies - and move closer to Beijing's ultimate goal of China-Taiwan unity.

The pandas' combined names mean "reunion."

Since his inauguration seven months ago, Ma has moved aggressively to link Taiwan closer to the mainland, opening the door to a greatly increased flow of Chinese tourists and sanctioning a more liberalized regime for bilateral investments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. His steps contrast sharply with predecessor Chen Shui-bian's efforts to emphasize Taiwan's political and cultural separateness, which enraged Beijing.

Front-page photographs of the pandas in their native Sichuan Province habitat were splashed across Taiwanese papers yesterday and televisions stations followed their flight to Taipei with continuous updates.

ASSOCIATED PRESS