Baby Panda Secures CUP’s Chinese Expansion

A baby giant panda adopted by Cambridge University Press has helped the Chief Executive snag a prestigious publishers’ award in China.

BABY PANDA Cambridge Chengdu cup cute Joan Qiao panda shaun lu Sichaun Stephen Bourne

A giant panda has helped Cambridge University Press win a prestigious book award in China.

The panda is called Jian Qiao, which is the Chinese rendering of ‘Cambridge’, and was originally adopted in November 2010. She lives at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Foundation.

Despite having only just celebrated her first birthday, the adoption of the young female has helped to build closer working links in the country and raised the profile of the Cambridge Young Learners course books published for Chinese school children. Jian Qiao was also crucial in helping Stephen Bourne, chief executive of CUP, to claim the prestigious Beijing International Book Fair Special Book Award – the first foreigner to have done so.

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Jian Qiao and another panda playing [Video: CUP]

Bourne said, of claiming the prestigious accolade: “I am incredibly honoured to receive this award… I believe it is testament to all the work that we are doing in and for China.”

Shortly after her first birthday [Image: CUP]

Indeed, CUP has clearly had its paws full, with the adoption of the panda coming as part of a ‘wider conservation programme’ which has also included rebuilding a school razed by the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake

The adoption of a giant panda at an estimated cost of £2,500 a year may appear bamboo-zling in these austere times of deep cuts and soaring student fees.

But Bourne said: ‘It shows the importance that we place on being a responsible member of the communities in which we operate.’ Sounds im-paw-tant.