BEIJING – China said Sunday that 100 million people had voted in a contest to name two pandas offered to rival Taiwan in an effort to build support for uniting the island with the communist mainland
The pandas were named Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan – from the Chinese word tuanyuan, or “reunion” – after a vote on 10 pairs of names with ballots cast by phone and Internet, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The names were announced just after midnight Sunday during a nationwide television extravaganza celebrating the start of the Lunar New Year.
China offered the pandas to Taiwan last May after the leader of the island’s opposition Nationalist Party made the highest-level visit to the mainland since the two sides split in 1949 amid civil war.
Beijing claims the island as part of its territory and has threatened repeatedly to capture it by force. The two countries have no official relations.
Taiwan’s government hasn’t said whether it will accept the animals.
The male bear, previously known as No. 19, comes from a long line of panda ambassadors. His mother, Hua Mei, was the first U.S.-born panda to live longer than a few months.
Hua Mei, whose name means “China United States,” was born in 1999 to a pair of pandas China lent to the San Diego zoo in California. She returned to China in 2004.
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