Giant pandas hard at work for China

The Cute creatures have been envoys for the nation since the tang dynasty in the seventh century

Giant panda Liang-Liang, pictured on June 25, 2014 at the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur. [Photo/CFP]

It has to be the marketing man's dream. Think giant pandas, think China.

And what's not to like? The giant cuddly creatures, unlike other giant mammals, don't eat humans, seem gentle, and spend their days rolling around and playing, in between eating bamboo shoots and posing for photographs.

They've also had to work for a living. First there was ping-pong diplomacy, when an invitation to the US table tennis team to visit China in April 1971 presaged a thaw in US-China relations, which culminated in an official visit by then president Richard Nixon.

But giant pandas have been hard at work on China's behalf for a long time, ever since the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century, when Empress Wu Zetian dispatched a pair of black and white furry envoys to the Japanese emperor.

In 1937 an American adventurer called Floyd Tangier-Smith captured six giant pandas in their habitat, the bamboo-clad mountains of Sichuan province in central China. You couldn't imagine that happening today, given that pandas are a protected species and probably one of the world's most visible animals. And the Chinese authorities, quite rightly, maintain an iron guard over the creatures.

Tangier-Smith, in the middle of the brutal Sino-Japanese war, decided to export the pandas to Europe. After a grueling trip by truck, one died, but the rest sailed for Britain chained in their open cages on the deck of a cargo ship, arriving in London during a raging blizzard in 1938.

The baby of the group was called Ming, who ended up in London Zoo, and became a star attraction for adults and children alike during the German bombing blitz. Achieving celebrity status, she appeared on postcards and Underground railway posters, and even got to meet the future Queen Elizabeth, then a princess.

Sadly Ming died in 1944, with the august Times of London newspaper even writing her obituary.

In her lifetime, she became probably the first modern example of panda diplomacy.

I'm old enough to remember her natural successor in the panda celebrity stakes, a female called Chi Chi who ended up in London Zoo in 1958 after the London Zoological Society, which runs the zoo, paid 12,000 pounds ($18,596; 16,390 euros) for her.

Instant celebrity status - visitors flocked to see the giant bear-like creature with the distinctive black and white fur. She seemed to revel in the attention. Sadly, her private life suffered. Attempts to mate her with An An, a male panda from Moscow's Zoo, failed spectacularly.

She died a spinster in 1972, and a nation mourned. She lives on - her remains were stuffed and she now resides in the Natural History Museum and more importantly, naturalist and artist Sir Peter Scott immortalized her as the original logo for the World Wildlife Fund, nowadays known as the World Wide Fund for Nature.

By now, panda diplomacy had taken off. Nixon's successful visit to China had triggered the gift of a pair to Washington's Zoo, and in 1974 then British prime minister Edward Heath successfully asked for a pair and Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching arrived a few months later.

Since then pandas have stepped back from the pure diplomatic role, and entered the league of multinational business, although China still offers them in part as symbols of friendship.

Want a giant panda for your zoo? Fabulous furry friends are available from Sichuan on 10-year loan deals, and that will be $1 million, please. Oh, and any offspring born at the time are the property of the Sichuan authorities.

Sadly, things don't always work out. Tian Tian, currently residing at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, had been thought to be pregnant, but the BBC reported later that she had lost the cub she was expecting.

As a journalist, writing about pandas guarantees you headlines, it seems.

The author is managing editor of China Daily Europe, based in London. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com