A diplomatic gift is rarely just a gift. For centuries, world leaders have exchanged everything – from statues and artworks to elephants, pandas, dogs and even cats — objects and animals that showcase a country’s culture and signal goodwill.
Some as quirky as metal wine cooler shaped like a giant grasshopper, which was gifted to the Queen by President Pompidou of France in 1972, to monumental gestures such as the Statue of Liberty, presented to the United States by the people of France in 1884. Diplomatic gifts come in all shapes and sizes. it marked a small, sweet reminder of the ties between the two countries that began more than a century ago on the battlefields of Flanders While the sculpture did not survive the journey to India.
In a more recent show of “gift diplomacy”, US President Donald Trump on Thursday presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with a sculpture of a bald eagle, a bird native to North America and Washington’s national symbol. In a stark example of commemorating shared history, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who was on a visit to New Delhi in early September, said that he had a “fitting gift” for India – a sculpture of India Gate made entirely out of the finest Belgian chocolate.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also known for gifting foreign leaders objects that showcase India’s diverse art and craft traditions. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing has used giant pandas as a gesture of goodwill towards its international allies and competitors. The first such instance came in 1957, when Chinese leader Mao Zedong gifted two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Qi Qi, to the Soviet Union to mark the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, according to the BBC. India’s gift diplomacy began as soon as 1949, just two years after its independence, when the children of Japan wrote a letter to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, asking him to send them an elephant, saying that they had never seen one live. The prime minister took up the offer and sent to Japan on October 1, an elephant named after his own daughter, Indira.
In a speech, Modi said that when he meets foreign heads of state, he tries to ensure that the gifts he presents are made by India’s tribal artisans.
