Best of 2023: How giant pandas became China’s furry diplomats
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the week between Christmas and New Year, we’re listening back to some of our favourite episodes of 2023.
The giant panda has become one of China’s diplomatic tools, after a pair were gifted to President Nixon as an act of friendship in the 1970s. But with US-China relations deteriorating - what can pandas tell us about the two superpowers’ modern relationship?
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Guest: Didi Tang, Beijing Correspondent, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Clips: The National Archives, CNN, France 24, CCTV, NBC News, Richard Nixon Foundation, Action News 5, TikTok/@care2petitions, pandavoices.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's manveen. In the week between Christmas and New Year, we're looking back on some of our favorite episodes of 2023. In today's episode we explore an unusual |
| 0:16.3 | side of US-China history. You may have heard this year about the late Henry |
| 0:21.5 | Kissinger's role in opening up relations between the two |
| 0:24.5 | superpowers. But was there someone else who should be thanked but has so far |
| 0:29.8 | been grossly overlooked? Well today's episode is about the role of the giant panda. |
| 0:37.0 | What you're about to hear is a telephone call crackling through the mists of time from |
| 0:50.3 | all the way back in 1972. |
| 0:55.0 | Did you get me, Mr. Crosby Noise, please, of the Washington Star? |
| 1:02.0 | Yes, sir. |
| 1:03.0 | Hello. |
| 1:05.0 | Mr. Crosby, noise. |
| 1:06.0 | Hello, Mr. President. |
| 1:08.0 | How are you? |
| 1:09.0 | I don't have anything of taking importance enough for your column. |
| 1:13.0 | But I thought you'd be interested. |
| 1:15.0 | When President Richard Nixon made this phone call to a journalist for the Washington Star, |
| 1:21.0 | he was on the first ever visit by an American president to the People's |
| 1:26.0 | Republic of China. |
| 1:28.6 | It was a trip of earth-shaking importance which shaped foreign policy and geopolitics for decades to come. |
| 1:37.3 | And President Nixon knew just how to sell it to the American people. |
| 1:46.0 | To help usher in this new era of diplomacy, he relied on a pair of giant pandas. |
| 1:50.0 | The afternoon addition to the star |
... |
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