Pandas Gifted to Qatar for World Cup Slammed as 'Trite Gimmick'

China's gift of two pandas to the Middle East nation of Qatar ahead of it hosting the FIFA World Cup has been slammed by a prominent wildlife expert.

Thuraya, three, and Suhail, four, arrived to Doha airport from Sichuan province on Wednesday before being whisked to their new home at the Al-Khor Zoo near the capital.

They will spend 15 years living in the newly built Panda House Garden as part of a conservation program between the two countries.

It is the first time pandas have been sent to the Middle East as part of China's long-standing "Panda Diplomacy" which sees the Asian superpower use the famous creatures as ambassadors to build relations with other nation states.

"Today is my happiest day in Qatar for the past three years," said China's ambassador to Qatar, Zhou Jian at the official welcoming ceremony of the pandas to the zoo.

He noted the a cooperation deal signed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Amir of Qatar, Dawlat Qatar in 2020 led to the pandas arrival in the country.

"It is also the first of its kind in the Middle East, marking a new height for China-Qatar relations and a new chapter in Chinese-Arab friendship," the ambassador continued.

"We hope that the arrival of the giant pandas will inspire people's enthusiasm for understanding China. There are many vivid stories of pursuing and realizing dreams in China every day."

He added: "We hope that our Qatari friends will know more about China and the Chinese people through the pandas, and become 'panda huggers'."

However, wildlife expert and TV presenter, Chris Packham, was not impressed. He angrily suggested a rewrite of an Associated Press headline about the story.

"Morning@AP how about this as a headline 'Endangered bamboo forest species shipped to a desert to be used as trite gimmick for a corrupt sporting fiasco' ?" he tweeted.

Packham was referring to the controversy surrounding the soccer World Cup starting in Qatar on 20 November and running to 18 December.

Several thousand migrant workers, many from developing countries, who traveled to Qatar to find work building the needed World Cup infrastructure have died from working in the desert heat and others from poor working or living conditions.

Temperatures there can reach more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and then-FIFA boss Sepp Blatter admitted in 2014 that granting the games to Qatar in 2010 was "a mistake."

Other critics also slammed FIFA for not doing its due diligence on Qatar in regards to its human rights record especially with regard for journalists, women, or LGBTQ+ people who may be competing in, working at, or attending the event.

China also seemed to be looking to improve its relations with Qatar by gifting them the pandas, rather than the usual lease agreement it holds with other countries.

But it is not the first time Beijing has used its adorable national emblem as a diplomatic tool. A 2013 article published in the journal Environmental Practice found that since 2008 China's panda loans coincide "with nations supplying China with valuable resources and technology."

Some of the examples included a $4 billion deal with Scotland for goods exports and renewable energy technology, and a $20 billion deal with France for a uranium treatment plant.

China has also been in talks this year with Qatar to invest in its North Field East expansion, the world's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. The Asian country imported more LNG than any other country in 2021 as the country's demand for the fuel has surged in recent years.

The animal's lease system began under Mao Zedong's successor Deng Xiaoping in 1984 and it was described as "gift loans involving a capitalist lease model," for which foreign zoos pay an annual fee to the Chinese government to host the pandas.

China then switched over to a longer-term lease plan to encourage breeding of the species, which is considered vulnerable by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Giant Pandas are the rarest kind of bear in the world and live mainly in temperate forests in the mountains of southwest China. The WWF estimates that around 1,864 giant pandas live in the wild and subsist only on bamboo.

In order to survive they must eat up to 84 pounds of bamboo everyday.

Critics of China's 'panda diplomacy' also slammed pandas being sent to countries' whose climates do not match their native environments, which could lead to health issues.

The death of one panda at a zoo in Chiang Mai, Thailand sparked outrage around the world. Chuang Chuang died suddenly in 2019 after first arriving to Thailand in 2003.

Some say he died from obesity after being put on a diet in 2007, but an autopsy revealed he had died of heart failure.

The Thai government would still have had to pay a fine of anywhere up to $500,000 to China as part of the lease agreement, which sees those leasing the animals liable for the deaths.

Chris Packham declined to comment for this story and Newsweek also reached out to Chinese Ambassador to Qatar, Zhou Jian.