Pandas brought comfort to World War II soldiers

(Ecns.cn)--China is safeguarding over 1,750 pandas, including 1,590 now being raised in the wild, 161 being fed artificially and 23 living abroad, according to the Yangcheng Evening News citing the third report on the Chinese panda resource posted Tuesday.

Since the establishment of new China, there were only three ways that a panda could go abroad legally: as a state gift to a foreign country, for exhibit, or on loan for scientific investigation. Between 1957 and 1982, China sent 23 pandas overseas to nine foreign countries.

During the Second World War, a male panda named Ming was given to Britain as a gift to cheer up their soldiers and the cute creature was warmly welcomed by the British people. After the war, in 1958, a female panda named Chi Chi was brought to the zoo where Ming lived.

Chi Chi was an exchange bear who left the Beijing zoo with an Austrian who had a number of African animals he was moving. She was expected to appear in Washington D.C., but because the relationship with the United States was in lockdown, Chi Chi could not enter. She then became a "British citizen."

Chi Chi was popular and people there expected that she would give birth to a baby, but though she was shipped to Moscow to mate with another male panda during the 1960s, Chi Chi failed to conceive. She died in 1972 without having any babies.

In 1982, China canceled the options to send a panda abroad as a gift or on loan for exhibition was also cancelled. Now, only sending a panda for scientific exchange is permitted.