China considering joint panda research with Japan

<p><font face="Arial">BEIJING  -- China was actively considering cooperation with Japan in panda research, said President Hu Jintao here on Sunday.</font></p><p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial">Hu, who is scheduled to visit Japan from May 6 to 10, made the remarks during an interview with journalists from 16 Japanese media organizations stationed in Beijing.</font></p><p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial">Japan has requested that China send a pair of pandas for the purpose of research cooperation. "We understand the Japanese people's aspiration," Hu said, noting he had also noticed that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda had given attention to the issue.</font></p><p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial">Fukuda has expressed the hope that China would lend pandas to Japan for this purpose. His comments came a day after the death on April 30 of Ling Ling, a giant panda sent to Tokyo's Ueno Zoo in 1992, in exchange for a Japanese-born panda cub.</font></p><p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial">The exchange commemorated the 20th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral relations.</font></p><p style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><font face="Arial">Ling Ling, born in the Beijing Zoo in 1985, died at the age of 22 -- the equivalent of 70 in human years. With the death of Ling Ling, Japan currently has eight giant pandas, all on loan from China.</font></p><p><font face="Arial">China donated Lan Lan and Kang Kang as the first pair of giant pandas to Japan to commemorate the normalization of bilateral ties in 1972.</font></p><p> </p></div>