By Jerome A. Cohen
I cannot resist commenting on today’s biggest China news, even though I am sure this is not my first mention of those potent symbols of the PRC’s good will. I tried to use purchase of a panda as a means of getting to China in 1963-4 while in Hong Kong. My wife’s uncle was chairman of the St. Louis Zoo and authorized me to spend US$25K if I could bring one back. As the NYTimes reported, the effort failed.
But things went better over two decades later when NY mayor Ed Koch asked me, as chair of the NY-Beijing Sister City Friendship Committee, to join him in a last-ditch effort to bring pandas to the Bronx Zoo by negotiating with a delegation visiting NY from the Chinese Wildlife Association. Koch had long been asking every PRC group that came to NY to give us a panda or two. At first it had been a standing joke. These visitors explained that there were only enough pandas to allow gifts to a nation’s capital. They would bring him panda sweatshirts, panda dolls and a range of other poor substitutes, but the issue became increasingly sensitive.
The Wildlife group’s arrival gave us a final chance. After a tense hour or two, during which they explained there could be no NY gifts nor could they sell us any pandas, I got the idea: Why not lease pandas for a limited period, knowing that the PRC at that time was eager to earn foreign exchange? They had not considered this possibility and were plainly interested. Then, as they said, it became a matter of determining how much NY City was willing to contribute to their funds “in the name of friendship”.
When I told them we would put up half a million dollars for a rental of two pandas for six months, they responded that “That doesn’t sound very friendly”! We ended up paying roughly twice as much and the Zoo nevertheless made money because of the popularity of the bears. This started a trend, which San Diego was the first to build upon.