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ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS AND CASE STUDIES
Diplomats and Refugees: Panda
Diplomacy, Soft “Cuddly”
Power, and the New Trajectory
in Panda Conservation
Kathleen Carmel Buckingham, Jonathan
Neil William David, and Paul Jepson
China’s practice of gifting and loaning giant pandas has been
given new impetus as a result of damage to panda-
conservation facilities caused by the 2008 Sichuan earth-
quake and China’s rise as an economic power. We suggest
that a new, third phase of panda diplomacy is under way that
is distinct from the previous two. Phase 1 during the Mao era
(in the 1960s and 1970s) took the form of China gifting
pandas to build strategic friendships. Phase 2 followed Deng
Xiaoping’s rise to power in 1978 when gifts became gift
loans involving a capitalist lease model based on financial
transactions. In the emerging phase 3, panda loans are
associated with nations supplying China with valuable re-
sources and technology and symbolize China’s willingness to
build guanxi—namely, deep trade relationships character-
ized by trust, reciprocity, loyalty, and longevity. Notable is
the correlation of guanxi loan deals with nations supplying
resources and technologies to China in the aftermath of the
2008 earthquake in panda habitat. As captive breeding re-
sumes with the completion of repairs to the earthquake-
damaged Wolong Breeding center, we predict that panda
diplomacy will increase and that panda conservation, more
than ever, will be the outcome of a complex, dynamic
interplay among politics, markets, and conservation science.
Environmental Practice Page 1 of 9
T
he giant panda’s Ailuropoda melanoleuca status as a
flagship species in wildlife conservation is well known.
Panda imagery is invoked as a means to raise public and
political support for international conservation policy and
action. In parallel, the panda has been actively positioned
as an emblem of the Chinese nation. The confluence of
these conservationist and nationalistic log ics has stimu-
lated the practice of panda diplomacy, a term coined dur-
ing the Cold War ~1946–1991!, when China gifted pandas to
foreign governments with which it sought strategic friend-
ships ~Randall, 2011!.Thevalue of pandas in international
relationships is a product of the interplay of their unique
phenotypic and ecological traits, their emblematic roles,
the scientific and practical challenges associated with their
conservation, and Chinese national and foreign policy. In
this article, we present an integrated analysis of panda
diplomacy. We suggest that the practice has been g iven new
impetus by a combination of impacts of the 2008 Sichuan
earthquake on panda facilities and China’s rise as a world
economic power linked to their model of state-controlled
capitalism.
The habitat of the giant panda is now restricted to six
mountain ranges in southwestern China ~Xu et al., 2006!.
Recent official estimates put the wild population at 1,600
~World Wildlife Fund, 2013! and the captive population at
333 ~Ruane, 2012!. Wild populations are threatened by hab-
itat fragmentation and disturbance caused by hig hway and
dam developments, plantation forestry, and tourism ~Zheng
et al., 2012!. For decades, panda conservation has faced
major challenges because of the species’ specialist and in-
flexible dietary, reproductive, and habitat traits: bamboo
constitutes 99% of panda diets; females are fertile for only
1–3 days annually, and the courting ritual involves chasing
each other over large distances ~Peng et al., 2007!, and the
species is solitary and occupies relatively large territories of
3.9–6.4 km
2
~Schaller et al., 1985!. As a result, pandas are
Affiliation of authors: Kathleen Carmel Buckingham, PhD,
1
School of
Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United
Kingdom. Jonathan Neil William David, DPhil candidate, School of Ge-
ography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United
Kingdom. Paul Jepson, PhD, MSc Course Director, School of Geography
and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Address correspondence to: Kathleen Carmel Buckingham, University
of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Road,
Oxford OX13QY, United Kingdom; ~e-mail! kathleenbuckingham@
gmail.com.
© National Association of Environmental Professionals 2013
doi:10.10170S1466046613000185
Diplomats and Refugees 1
both notoriously difficult to breed in captivity and vulner-
able to natural events: in 1970 and 1983, mass-bamboo
flowering caused starvation and heightened mortality in
some populations ~Schaller, 1994!.The2008 Sichuan earth-
quake caused landslides and widespread damage to panda
habitat.
Phase 1 Panda Diplomacy: Building
Strategic Alliances in the Mao Era
Panda diplomacy has a long histor y: in the Tang dynasty
~624–705!, two pandas were presented to the Japanese ~Watts,
2007!. However, modern panda diplomacy began in the
late 1950s as part of a foreign-policy strategy of Chairman
Mao Zedong. In brief, the Chinese Communist Party per-
ceived the USSR as its militant revolutionary rival and the
United States ~US! as its major ideological adversary. Rather
than fighting “with both fists” ~Scott, 2007!, Chairman
Mao hoped that by opening up to both these two super-
powers, they would recognize China’s emerging position
and create a triangular power balance, thereby preventing
violent conflict ~Scobell, 2007!. Living pandas had huge
popular appeal outside China. The 1936 ar rival of Su Lin in
the US ~brought back by explorer Ruth Harkness! had
been a public sensation ~Nicholls, 2010!, and Chi Chi,
acquired by London Zoo from an animal dealer in 1958,
became one of the best-loved zoo animals ever: it was the
inspiration for the famous logo of the World Wildlife Fund
~WWF, founded in 1961!.
Recognizing the diplomatic value of the panda’s superstar
qualities, the People’s Republic of China ~PRC! began gift-
ing them as part of strategic friend making. The first gifts
were in 1965 to President Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet
Union and Kim Il-Sung of the Democratic People’s Re-
public of Korea ~DPRK!, commonly known as North Korea
~Sina, 2011!. Subsequently, Chairman Mao presented US
President Richard Nixon and UK Premier Edward Heath
with pairs of pandas during their historic state visits to
China in 1972 and 1974, respectively ~McGeown, 2005!.In
all, China gifted 24 pandas as “goodwill ambassadors” to
nine nations during 1957–1983 ~Schaller, 1994!.
Public interest in the possibility of breeding these panda
gifts in Moscow, Washington, DC, and London served to
further enhance the symbolic role of pandas in inter-
national relations. The rarit y of pandas outside China ne-
cessitated exchanges between zoos located across ideological
divides, notably between London and Moscow, and the
difficulty of inducing captive pandas to mate ~and repeated
failures!
provided the popular media with a rich source of
satirical cartoons and nationalist puns—for example, the
James Bond movie–inspired From Russia—without Love
~Nicholls, 2010!. This blend of cuteness, incompetence in
love, and nationalistic banter, combined with its assign-
ment as the emblem of international conservation, served
to make the panda a cultural animal icon in the West. This
together with the opening up of relations between China
and the West prompted the logic that, if the WWF had the
panda as its logo, it should also have field projects con-
cerned with its survival. Through fortuitous connections
and after difficult negotiations, the WWF and the Chinese
State Forestry Administration embarked on a collaborative
conservation project involving the building and equipping
of the Wolong research center and systematic research on
panda-species biology ~O’Brien, Wenshi, and Zhi, 1994;
Schaller, 1994!.
Phase 2 Panda Diplomacy: State-Controlled
Capitalist Gift Loans
Following Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power in 1978, China
embarked on a program of economic reforms leading to
state-led capitalism characterized by an “open-door pol-
icy” ~to Western investment! and the creation of special
economic zones adopting capitalist principles ~Sung, 1991!.
Such principles were extended to pandas and after 1984
gifts became gift loans involving a capitalist lease model
based on financial transactions ~Sina, 2011!. The purpose of
panda diplomacy moved from a n emphasis on geopolitics
to a focus on markets: prestigious zoos in nations seen as
important markets for Chinese products were offered the
opportunity to lease pandas for six-figure sums plus a
percentage of merchandising sales ~Peddie, 2010!.
This phase commenced in 1984 @the same year the Inter-
national Union for Conser vation of Nature listed the giant
panda as an endangered species ~Imbriaco, 2006!# when
China presented two pandas to Los Angeles Zoo during the
city’s hosting of the Olympic Games. This deal prompted
“vigorous jostling by North American and European Zoos
to obtain pandas for exhibition” ~Schaller, 1994,p.235!.
Between 1984 and 1987, pandas were leased to eight zoos
for a fee of US$50,000 per month per panda ~Imbriaco,
2006!. This rent-a-panda program became the subject of
intense controversies ~Schaller, 1994!. Besides animal-
welfare concerns, conservationists objected because the Con-
vention of International Trade in Endangered Species
legislated that, as an Appendix 1 listed species, trade in
pandas should be permitted for only scientific pur poses
2 Environmental Practice
and/or to enhance propagation and survival of the species.
To meet the latter criteria, Chinese authorities abandoned
short-term loans in 1991 in favor of a system, proposed by
both Chinese and Western conserv ationists, of long-term
loans ~to allow breeding!, with lease fees being used to
finance implementation of a giant panda management plan
that was published by the WWF in 1991 and approved by
the Chinese Forest Administration in 1993 ~O’Brien, Wen-
shi, and Zhi, 1994!.
Phase 3 Panda Diplomacy: Building Guanxi
and Trade Relations after the 2008
Earthquake
It seems that the 2008 Sichuan earthquake created an im-
petus for a third phase of panda diplomacy. This Richter-
scale-8 quake permanently destroyed an estimated 5.9%
~656 km
2
! of panda habitat and affected 67% of panda
habitat overall ~Ouyang et al., 2008; Zheng et al., 2012!.
Damage in Sichuan Province, the focus of panda-conservation
activities, was sig nificant: 23% ~354 km
2
! of panda habitat
was damaged, including 249 km
2
inside nature reserves.
Adding to this setback, the quake hit during the 24-to
72-hour window each spring when female pandas are fer-
tile. It is assumed that recruitment to the wild and captive
populations was interrupted ~Ang, 2008!. Significantly, the
Wolong Nature Reserve and Breeding Center was badly
damaged, and all of the center’s 60 pandas required rehous-
ing. The majority were moved initially to the Ya’an Conser-
vation Center in Bifengxia National Reserve ~280 km away!.
However, the center’s limited facilities and the limited ca-
pacity elsewhere in China to house these “refugee” pandas
with their complex husbandry requirements represented
something of a crisis for Chinese authorities ~Xinhua, 2011!.
Repairs to the Wolong nature reserve were expected to take
at least four years @scheduled for completion by the end of
2012 ~Xinhua, 2008! but still ongoing# and expanding panda
loans represented both a lucrative source of funds to assist
the rebuilding and development of the Wolong center and
a partial solution to the housing problem.
One response was to extend existing gift loans due to
expire in 2010, 2015, and 2013 with two US zoos and one
Thai zoo, respectively, after which the pandas would have
been returned to China ~Pattaya Daily News, 2011; Trindle,
2011; Zabarenko, 2011!. A second response was to offer
panda gift-loans to a new group of nations with which
China was negotiating important trade agreements. Japan
received a pair in March 2011 ~Japan Today, 2011!, Scotland
their first pair in December 2011, and Canada a pair in 2011,
with France ~Telegraph, 2012! and Singapore receiving a
pair each in 2012 ~AsiaOne, 2012!. Loan deals are also under
discussion with Malaysia and New Zealand ~Burgess, 2010b;
Chen, 2008!. Two patterns are discernible in these recent
panda transactions: first they involve close Asian neighbor
nations that have signed free-trade agreements with China
since 2009 ~Table 1
!, and second they involve nations sup-
plying China with natural resources and advanced tech-
nologies ~Table 2!.
In the case of Edinburgh, Scotland, the panda loan deal
was overseen by China’s deputy premier while negotiating
contracts valued at £2.6 billion ~US$4.0 billion! for the
supply to China of salmon meat, Land Rover cars, and
petrochemical and renewable energy technology ~BBC, 2011;
Hui, 2011!. Significantly, Norway had supplied China with
salmon for two decades until relations between the two
nations became strained following the award of the 2010
Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Tabl e 1. China free-trade agreements ~FTAs! and panda status
Agreement Year came into effect Panda gift loan Year FTA ag reed Status
ASEAN–China Free-Trade Area
~ACFTA!
January 1, 2010 Thailand
Singapore
Hong-Kong
Malaysia
2009 Extended 2010
Arrived 2012
Alreadyinplace
Expected 2014
China–New Zealand January 1, 2009 2008 Pandas not yet arrived
China–Singapore January 1, 2009* 2008 Arrived November 2012
China–Macao October 1, 2009 2009
Arrived December 2010
. ASEAN,
Association of Southeast Asian
Nations.
*Agence France-Presse ~2008!
Diplomats and Refugees 3
The Canada panda loan coincides with another significant
portfolio of long-term contracts to supply China with ura-
nium oxide ~until 2025!~World Nuclear News, 2010!, the
US$2.1 billion purchase of oil-sands producer Opti Canada
by a Chinese state oil company and the purchase of seal
meat ~MacDonald, 2011; Nor’wester, 2011!. In France, the
panda gift-loan coincides with an estimated US$20 billion
package of deals involving the supply of uranium oxide
and construction of an uranium treatment plant in China
by French nuclear giant Areva and an investment by the
energy giant Total for a Chinese petrochemical plant ~BBC,
2010a!. The link between pandas and uranium in this new
panda diplomacy appears significant. China is embarking
on a major expansion of nuclear power: it has 25 power
plants under construction and is planning a five- or sixfold
increase in nuclear capacity by 2050 ~World Nuclear Asso-
ciation, 2012!. Moreover, China’s demand for uranium will
overtake domestic supply by 2020. In addition to the afore-
mentioned countries, Australia, which has the world’s larg-
est uranium reserves, has had a panda gift-loan since 2009
~Peddie, 2010!.
This third phase of panda diplomacy is characterized by
panda loans to nations supplying China with valuable re-
sources and technology that are located in few countries.
In our view, such gift-loans can be understood as an ex-
pression of guanxi in bilateral trade arrangements involv-
ing China. Guanxi describes personalized networks of
influence and a depth of relationship where members move
into an inner circle characterized by trust, reciprocity, loy-
alty, and longevity ~Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, 2002!.From
a Chinese perspective, sharing the care of such a precious
animal strengthens these bonds. In short, panda loans are
not simply part of a larger deal; rather, they represent a
“seal” of approval ~or “panda of approval”! and intent for
a long, prosperous working relationship.
The Panda as White Elephant
The term white elephant derives from the old practice,
among Asian sultanates that treated elephants with pale
skin pigmentation as sacred, of gifting such animals to
other favored kingdoms ~Groning and Saller, 1999!.The
obligation to keep these rare, sacred, and resource-
demanding life forms alive and well, so as to honor the
relationship signified by the elephant gift, incurred large
and sometimes r uinous costs. The panda may be the
modern-day white elephant—not quite sacred, but a pow-
erful emblem of the modern Chinese nation and influen-
tial cultural values relating to conservation and animal
welfare. The costs of keeping pandas are substantial: new
panda facilities are estimated to cost Toronto Zoo ~Can-
ada! $14.5 million and Adelaide Zoo ~Australia! $10.3 mil-
lion ~Burgess, 2010a!. Sourcing an adequate bamboo supply
is also a problem for zoos globally; importing bamboo
from Holland will cost Edinburgh Zoo £70,000 ~US$107,000!
per year ~Brown, 2011!, whereas zoos in Berlin, Adelaide,
Washington, DC, and San Diego are seeking to reduce
costs by encouraging citizens to grow bamboo in their
gardens ~Carswell, 2011; NBC, 2009; Scotsman, 2011!.Al-
though panda agreements are signed off at the highest
government level ~Hall, 2011!, the Western model of capi-
talism has commercialized many civic institutions, such as
city zoological parks. Western governments increasingly
see the panda as a commercial asset of a private zoo. For
example, the Scottish Parliament declined a request for
support from Edinburgh Zoo ~Kelbie, 2011!, leading one
director to comment that they were taking a “financial
gamble” ~Macleod, 2011!.
All loan contracts contain fines of $500,000 if a panda dies
and human error is involved ~Stock, 2011!. Moreover, while
it is expected that zoos will make every effort to breed the
pandas ~an expectation shared by host zoos and their pub-
lics!, China assumes ownership of any offspring produced.
Panda guanxi loans are offered only to cities whose zoo
meets a baseline of technical capacity and resources. Being
among the nations with which China trades but does not
potentially deem technically sufficiently developed to re-
ceive a panda places countries such as India, Pakistan,
Tabl e 2. China’s trading partners and panda status
Position Trading partner Date latest panda ar rived
1 United States Two extended, two cubs
repatriated 2010
2 Japan 2011
3 Hong Kong 2007
4 South Korea Sent 1995–1999
5 Taiwan 2008 ~after the earthquake!
6 Germany Sent 1995, died 2007
7 Australia 2009
8 Malaysia Expected 2014
9 Singapore 2012
10 India NA
13 United Kingdom 2012
15 Thailand Extended 2010
No data Canada 2012
France 2012
Source: Wikipedia ~2013!.
4 Environmental Practice
Chile, Peru, and Costa Rica in a different club. Malaysia, as
the third-largest trading partner with China within the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations ~ASEAN!, has re-
portedly been clamoring for a panda deal for some time
~Bernama, 2011; Burgess, 2010b!. In June 2012, Malaysia
finally secured a 10-year panda loan to mark the 40th
anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two nations in
2014 ~Shagar and Yu, 2013!.
In keeping with the idea of guanxi t rade loans, there are
indications that China approaches them as more than a
purely commercial transaction but also as an avenue to
signal forms of disapproval in bilateral relations. For ex-
ample, two US-born panda cubs that were contractually
due to return to China in 2010 were on a plane to China
two days after the US was warned by China that ties would
be damaged if a meeting between President Barack Obama
and the Dalia Lama went ahead ~Zoncker, 2010!. According
to some observers, the timing of the repatriation was “sig-
nificant” ~Dudding, 2010! not least because these are the
only pandas to be recalled by China since the 2008 Sichuan
earthquake ~BBC, 2010b!. Sensing this connection, New
Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who is currently nego-
tiating a panda deal, commented, “We wouldn’t trade our
views on foreign policy for pandas” ~Dudding, 2010!. ~In-
cidentally, New Zealand is yet to receive pandas.! The panda
loans to France were also delayed until the G20 summit
could resolve the financial crisis in Europe ~Agence France-
Presse, 2011!. Given such indicators, we suggest that if cap-
ital city publics take too enthusiastically to pandas and if
zoos market their superstar attributes without heed to the
wide geopolitical-economic realities, then there is a risk
that the repatriation of a loved city panda could create a
form of sanction that directly affects and speaks to a sig-
nificant proportion of a Western city populous.
Future Directions in Panda Conservation
The subject of soft power is beginning to enter discussion
on China’s rise as a major world power ~Barr, 2011!. Soft
power involves achieving what you want through attraction
rather than coercion or payments. Culture is an important
aspect of soft power because its adoption by others builds
acceptance and omnipresence. The panda represents a fas-
cinating soft-power resource. Its presence in non-Chinese
zoos involves others in the appreciation and care of a
Chinese national treasure. The panda offers a softer animal
symbol for China compared to those of its past ~notably
the red dragon! and an entry point to documentaries deal-
ing with natural beaut y of the country ~e.g., Wild China,
2008!.
Over the last decade, the partnership between Chinese and
Western scientists has generated substantial new knowl-
edge about panda behavior, reproductive physiology, en-
docrinolog y, nutrition, genetics, and veterinar y care
~Swaisgood et al., 2011!. Significant advances in captive
breeding have been achieved. Prior to the earthquake, the
Wolong facility was achieving successful natural mating in
nearly all females and two of three males, with cub survival
rates approaching 100% ~Swaisgood et al., 2003!. The next
phase of panda conservation looks set to build upon and
develop new forms of research collaborations with scien-
tists engaged in the developing fields of mammal reintroduc-
tions that house pandas globally, restoration e cology, and
animal geography. The need for adaptive management for
pandas has been advocated by researchers ~Swaisgood et al.,
2011!. To date, when the repairs to Wolong are completed,
we suggest that the breeding program will resume where it
left off and, given the soft-power value of pandas, the
number of guanxi and other forms of panda-loans will
increase.
Using pandas as an instrument of soft power will also
make pragmatic management sense, given that techniques
to release captive-bred panda are still in their infancy. Just
10 pandas have been released since 1983, and only two
remain in the wild. Six were recaptured after significant
weight loss, one was found dead with broken ribs and
serious internal injuries ~believed to have been inflicted
by wild pandas!, and another is believed to have died
~Associated Press, 2007!. A new phase of training pandas
for release is under way, and six more are due for release
in enclosed forest in 2013. Pandas are being placed in
more c hallenging high-altitude environments @China Con-
servation and Research Center for the Giant Panda
~CCRCGP!, 2011a#, and communication and contact be-
tween humans and pandas is being restricted to research-
ers wearing panda costumes ~CCRCGP, 2011b!.However,
the aggressively territorial behavior of adult pandas com-
bined with ever-shrinking areas of quality habitat pose
particular reintroduction challenges.
Swaisgood et al. ~2011! advocate the need to adopt princi-
ples of adaptive management in panda conservation. How-
ever, we suggest that, in this endeavor, conservationists
might need to move outside the traditional Western con-
servation frame that assumes the end goal is for wild
animals living in natural habitat. As pandas become more
visible in global zoos, boundaries between wild and captive
Diplomats and Refugees 5
will blur. Late-20th-century visions focused on wild panda
populations and landscape connectivity ~Loucks et al., 2001!
arelikelytogivewaytoamoreintegratedapproachin-
volving panda landscapes characterized by zones of levels
of panda habituation, management, and intervention. The
presence of live pandas in zoos may be extended through
virtual encounters with live pandas in China and real en-
counters for wealthy travelers. The vari ety of encounters
Figure 1. Panda diplomacy stages 1–3.
6 Environmental Practice
on offer will reflect both the practicalities of reintroduc-
tion and restoration and consumer preferences. Breeding
centers will offer hands-on photo opportunities with highly
habituated pandas ~as was the practice in the Wolong cen-
ter!, and older or injured pandas may roam in enclosures
where visitors can enter and experience an essence of the
wild animals. Other zones may be interface areas between
wild and released pandas with restr icted scientific research,
and the remaining strongholds of wild pandas will become
spaces of high-end photo safaris.
Although the implications for conser v ation are speculative,
the wider environmental consequences are potentially more
fundamental. The star quality of pandas is causing zoos to
embrace a white elephant challenge hidden behind the soft
cuddly power of panda diplomacy. Soft power is an in-
creasingly important topic within global governance ~Nye,
2004!. A nation’s soft power rests heavily on three basic
resources: its culture, its political values, and its foreign
policies ~Nye, 2011!. Culture is perceived as China’s new
tool in diplomacy ~Lai, 2012!. Promotion of Chinese cul-
ture is considered a remedy to the “China threat” argu-
ment. In line with the official emphasis on culture as a
source of national power, public diplomacy—especially cul-
tural diplomacy—has become one of the primary tools for
China to develop soft power ~Lai and Lu, 2012!. Behind the
third phase of panda diplomacy lies natural resource deals
that entail serious environmental challenges. For instance,
Scotland is currently weighing the financial rewards against
environmental costs of increasing salmon inputs by 50%to
meet the Chinese demand ~Bullock, 2012! that was agreed
to on the eve of the panda loans. Future panda deals
should be assessed not only on direct conservation capac-
ity within zoos, but considered for the respective “panda of
approval” that seals a deal with broader environmental
consequences.
In summary, panda conservation operates in a complex,
dynamic interplay between politics, markets, and conser-
vation strategy. Pandas have moved around the world in
three different phases of diplomatic politics ~Figure 1!. This
new phase of panda diplomacy is operating at the conflu-
ence of guanxi trade relations and the imperative to out-
source panda husbandry and r aise reconstruction funds. In
1994, O’Brien, Wenshi, and Zhi argued that “endangered
species should never be held ‘hostage’” by politics, and a
successful panda-conservation policy must be totally sep-
arated from politics ~p. 180!. This perspective argues that
such ideals are no longer tenable. The reality is that the
panda is now as much an emblem of the Chinese nation as
it is of the WWF and international conservation. There are
differ enc es between how Chinese and Western cultures frame
the human–nature relationship. A successful panda-
conservation strategy must recognize and bridge these dif-
ferences and their management, policy, and political
implications.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank members of the Conservation Governance Lab within
the School of Geography and the Environment for their contributions to
the development of this article, and in particular Maan Barua, Mari
Mulyani, and Timothy Hodgetts. We are also grateful to Ron Swaisgood
at San Diego Zoo and David Wildt from the Smithsonian Institution for
pointing us toward additional literature, as well as a zookeeper in China
who inspired research in this area.
Note
1. This article was written while Kathleen Buckingham was writing her
DPhil thesis at the University of Oxford. She has since graduated.
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2013.
Diplomats and Refugees 9
