World

How China’s pandas may reflect spiralling international relations with the West

Published

1 year ago

December 25, 2023

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Pandas are China’s undisputed pride and joy.

They are a symbol of statehood, in many ways a national obsession.

But they are also valuable diplomatic tools and, in Xi Jinping’s China, a litmus test of sorts for the state of international relations.

Indeed, in 2023 unprecedented numbers of Chinese pandas leant abroad and hosted in foreign zoos have returned home and not been replaced.

In a sign of just how strained relations with the West have become, by the end of 2024 there will likely be no pandas at all in either the US, the UK, or Australia for the first time in five decades.

China has a long history of gifting its iconic bears abroad, with evidence of this practice happening as early as the 7th century.

In the modern era, these gifts have taken the form of loans and China gave its first pandas to America in 1972 following a visit to Beijing by then President Nixon and his wife.

But the principle has remained the same: a gesture of trust and a soft power tool around which China could curry favour and build influence.

Over the years, Chinese pandas have been hosted in countries around the world from the US, the UK, Germany and France to Japan and South Korea, but it’s unclear how much longer this practice might continue.

At Beijing Zoo there are always crowds of people who gather to see the pandas. Some have travelled a long way, while others visit multiple times a year.

And there is one resident in particular whose story explains what a serious diplomatic business the lending of pandas has become.

Ya Ya is 23 years old and a solid fan favourite. She is not currently on show to the public, but the zoo releases weekly videos showing her progress.

She returned home earlier this year from a long-term loan in America, amid a social media and diplomatic storm.

After images of her from Memphis Zoo looking skinny with ragged fur went viral, angry Chinese social media users called for her to be returned and the accusation that America was mistreating her spread rapidly.

Although Memphis Zoo insisted her appearance was down to a genetic skin condition and even though Chinese authorities later said Ya Ya had been treated well, the rumours were not curtailed by the censors and were enough to have influence on public opinion.

“All the sufferings Ya Ya had in America made me very uncomfortable,” says Shao Yanping a regular zoo visitor and a close follower of Ya Ya’s story.

“I don’t like America. The way they’ve treated our national treasure makes me dislike them even more. She was abused there. You can see with your own eyes. Just saying ‘we didn’t abuse it’, is not okay.”

The fact this narrative was allowed to run was indicative of increasingly strained relations. At the time little progress had been made to patch things up following the so-called spy balloon incident.

But while Ya Ya became a symbol of spiralling tensions, many other pandas were also being withdrawn.

Indeed, adult pandas Yang Guang and Tian Tian made their way home from Edinburgh Zoo recently after a stay of 12 years, while three pandas left Washington’s Smithsonian National zoo in November after their lease was not renewed.

The only pandas remaining in the US are in Atlanta, and their lease is also set to expire in 2024.

By the end of next year, there will likely be no pandas in the States for the first time in 50 years.

“Having that kind of connectivity to the outside world is really wonderful for China and it’s great for the world to know more about China.” says Professor Robert Koepp, an expert on China-US relations and director of the Asia-Pacific Geoeconomics and Business Initiative.

He explains that while removing soft power tools may not serve China in the long term, it is reflective of its new harder line diplomacy.

“You had this ‘Panda Diplomacy’ but lately it’s been more ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy,’ this highly aggressive form of, you can’t even call it outreach, it’s posturing.” he says.

“So we’ve gone from pandas to wolves, from cuddliness to aggressiveness, and that isn’t to say that China shouldn’t feel it has the right to be assertive and look after its own interest as any country should, but it’s the way it’s gone about it, it really isn’t earning too many friends outside maybe Russia and North Korea.”

Indeed, China is still sending pandas to some and it’s perhaps indicative as to where its loyalties lie.

Russia is one recent recipient. Pictures of President Xi and President Putin beaming together at Moscow Zoo crossed the world in 2019, and China has since then moved ever closer to its northern neighbour.

It is possible pandas could return to the West. Xi Jinping hinted as much at a recent summit with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco.

But while that summit offered a very slight easing of tensions, there is still so much that divides them and thus so much that could block any future agreement.

For now, it seems, pandas remain a precious bargaining chip, and a symbol of strained relations.

World

The fight for the Arctic – where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

Published

7 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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The fight for the Arctic - where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.

Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.

We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.

It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.

Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.

We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.

The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.

“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”

In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.

Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.

“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.

But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.

Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”

Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.

In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.

There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.

“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”

This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.

Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.

World

‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

Published

13 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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'What did they do to be burned and bombed?': Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.

Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing

The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.

“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.

He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.

Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan

Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.

“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.

“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.

“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”

Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.

They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.

Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.

“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.

“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”

One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.

His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.

“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”

Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”

The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.

He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.

Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”

Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.