Posted on 05/09/2008 8:21:27 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Japanese officials have said that the Tokyo’s zoo has been flooded with calls to refuse a pair of pandas offered by Chinese President Hu Jintao, fearing that the money from the lease would fund Beijing's clampdown in Tibet.
"We have received many calls from ordinary citizens who sometimes hysterically condemn" the proposal, said Hidemasa Hori, an Ueno Zoo official.
"There are others who call and say that Japan doesn't need to bow its head and pay money just to rent the pandas," he added.
Many callers cited China's crackdown on protests in Tibet, saying that the issue "is not really the rental fee per se, but more that Japan is supplying Beijing with money".
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) earlier this week appealed to Japan not to accept the pandas, saying they would be miserable in confinement, The Australian reported.
"Pandas are an endangered species, not a commodity to be traded for human amusement," the US-based group said in a letter.
President Hu on a visit to Japan offered to lease a male and a female panda to replace one of the best-loved animals at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, Ling Ling, who died last week.
Tokyo metropolitan official Kazuomi Nishikiori said that the fee is undecided, the going rate is one million dollar a year for a Japanese zoo to rent a panda.
Chinese and Japanese officials will hold talks next week about the proposed deal for Ueno Zoo, which is run by Tokyo's local government, he said.
Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara, an outspoken critic of China, has called on the zoo to study carefully whether bringing pandas would make financial sense by drawing more visitors.
"They are not divine. I don't care if they're there (at the zoo) or not," Ishihara said before Hu's visit.
A ridiculous headline fueled by ignorance. The money doesn’t go to fund the PAP but directly to the Woolong Research & Breeding Center to pay for, well research and breeding and preservation programs for existing Pandas both in captivity and in the wild. Funny that they get their quotes from “hysterical callers”, Peta, and Ishihara but don’t ask any zoologists familiar with the program!
Peta in particular is insane as usual. Those Panda habitats are huge and orders of magnitude bigger than my first apartment and all they do during the day besides mug for tourists cameras is eat, sleep, play, and have sex when they feel like it with not a care in the world. Hell they live better than I do.
Well said and there is no good reason to give Beijing a dime to support their tyrannical regime.
Boycott China!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.