With their distinctive shaggy orange manes, pale blue faces and thick fur covering their arms and legs, it is difficult to confuse China's endangered golden snub-nosed monkeys with any other animal.
These rare and charismatic monkeys, unique to the cold mountains of central China, recently joined the country's famous pandas for the first time as furry ambassadors to zoos in Europe – on loan for 10 years from the same government-controlled group that coordinates the official panda exchange.
Like ” panda diplomacy“, some observers welcome new opportunities for scientific and environmental cooperation, while others express concerns about the welfare individual animal representatives transported all over the world.
Three golden monkeys arrived at France's Beauval Zoo in Saint-Aignan in April this year following an agreement to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and France.
Another trio of golden monkeys arrived at Pairi Daisa Zoo in Hainaut, Belgium, in May. On the day the monkeys arrived, the zoo handed out Belgian and Chinese hand flags to visitors.
After a month of quarantine, two groups of monkeys made their public debut. They appear to be in good health at the moment and are adapting to a new climate outside of Asia for the first time, according to the two zoos.
At Pairi Daiza, the enclosure for Liu Yun, Lu Lu and Huang Huang includes traditional Chinese gazebos with red pillars and gray tiled roofs, where the monkeys spend much of their time jumping between logs and rope ladders and climbing across the roofs.
“The diplomatic aspect comes from this cultural awareness,” said Pairi Daiza spokesman Johan Vreis.
We hope to establish long-term scientific exchanges between zoos and Chinese authorities, said Anaïs Mori, director of public relations at the Beauval Zoo.
The zoo is in talks with China to launch joint research and conservation programs “similar to those that already exist for other iconic species such as pandas,” Mori said.
Both giant pandas and golden snub-nosed monkeys are endangered animals unique to China and can only be taken outside the country with permission from the central government, said Elena Songster, an environmental historian at Saint Mary's College of California.
Although both species are considered national treasures, only monkeys have deep roots in Chinese art and culture, appearing in countless paintings and as characters in classical literature, including the wily Monkey King in the 16th-century novel Journey to the West.
As pandas tramped, rolled, scratched and stumbled on the world stage in recent decades, they quickly became symbols of modern China—thanks in part to their “cute cuteness” and deft diplomatic demeanor, says Susan Brownell, a Chinese historian at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
The original soft power pair from post-war China was a pair of giant pandas, Ping Ping and Qi Qi, sent to the Soviet Union in 1957 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, which led to the creation of the world's first communist state.
In 1972, a pair of pandas were sent to the United States for the first time following President Richard Nixon's historic visit to Beijing. In 1984, China switched from donating pandas to leasing them.
Following protests from animal rights activists, China stopped the practice of short-term loans and began longer leases, usually lasting around ten years. As part of this arrangement, through the China Wildlife Conservation Association, a portion of the money an overseas zoo pays China each year must be used for habitat conservation or scientific research to benefit the species.
However, what benefits one species may not benefit an individual animal. Transporting animals long distances and sending their offspring back to China, as required by the agreements, can cause great stress for the animals, says Jeff Sebo, an environmental and bioethics researcher at New York University.
“Animal health and welfare are important,” he said, “not just for geopolitical or strategic purposes.”
In China, golden snub-nosed monkeys are now found in central and southwestern China, including parts of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Hubei provinces.
In Shennongjia National Park in Hubei province, conservation efforts since the 1980s have helped triple the region's population to about 1,600 monkeys today, said Yang Jingyuan, president of the park's Academy of Sciences.
It's unclear exactly how to evaluate the diplomatic track record of furry ambassadors.
Still, in an era of rising global tensions, “I think pandas are a really useful entry,” said James Carter, a Chinese historian at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. “Pandas open the door for people to think positive things about China – they are cute and don’t do anything bad.”
The golden snub-nosed monkeys, currently in zoos in France and Belgium, are the only ones so far outside Asia.
“Chinese golden snub-nosed monkeys have not yet become iconic around the world,” Brownell said, “but they have the potential to become so in the future.”
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Associated Press video producer Wayne Zhang in Shennongjia National Park contributed to this report.
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