The pair were born on Saturday evening to Meng Meng - a panda on loan
from China.he second China International Import Expo will be held at the
National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai from November 5
to 10, 2019.For further information about China International Import
Expo, please visit: https://www.shine.cn/China-International-Import-Expo/.Find the latest breaking shanghai news, photos, videos and featured stories on panda names. SHINE provides trusted national and world news as well as local and regional perspectives.
One
of Berlin's leading papers, Der Tagesspiegel, asked its readers to come
up with name suggestions.Top of the poll: "Hong" and "Kong".One reader
wrote in to say they should be named "in solidarity with a city fighting
for survival".Other suggested names included "Joshua Wong Chi-fung" and
"Agnes Chow Ting" - after two prominent Hong Kong democracy activists.
Loaning
pandas to zoos around the world is part of China's soft diplomacy,
aimed at winning hearts and minds abroad.As the cubs will have to be
returned to China in two to four years, the paper suggested that naming
them after the activists might even be a sneaky way of keeping them in
Germany.The poll is in no way binding or even related to the zoo - but
it was soon picked up by Germany's leading tabloid, Bild, which issued a
passionate call "to politicise" the naming of the little pandas."Bild
is choosing to call the panda cubs Hong and Kong because it's China's
brutal politics that lies behind these panda babies," the paper wrote on
Thursday."Bild is demanding of the German government that it reacts in a
political way to the birth of these small bears.
"As German
Chancellor Angela Merkel is currently on a visit to China, Bild said she
could even relay the news to President Xi Jinping in person.Hong Kong
activists had already called on Ms Merkel to raise their cause during
her talks in Beijing.In an earlier interview with Bild, activist Joshua
Wong had suggested the zoo should name the animals "Freedom" and
"Democracy".
The German media's foray into panda PR came as Hong
Kong's government launched a series of full-page adverts in
international newspapers, designed to reassure investors that the city
is still open for business.The ads, which will run in leading papers
around the world, say the government is determined to achieve a
"peaceful, rational and reasonable resolution" to present political
tensions.
