Today Niu Niu is ten years old. Having had a big piece of fruit cake for her 10th birthday, the giant panda Niu Niu gave a stretch in a shy way, and left people heartfelt happiness as usual.

In the giant panda's "private garden" full of bamboo and flowers in the Beijing Zoo here on Monday, hundreds of people from domestic and overseas together attended her 10th birthday party, singing songs for her and sharing the large cake with her.

"It's very nice that so many people came for Niu Niu's birthday," said Wang Baoqiang, vice manager of the zoo.

According to him, since the lifespan of a giant panda averages around 25 years, Niu Niu is now at her best age. By the end of last year, there were altogether 163 giant pandas in captivity, among which the oldest one Meimei died of disease this July at the age of 36.

Zeng Yangyang, a well-known young Chinese painter specializing in drawing giant pandas, presented a special gift to Niu Niu. On a piece of 28-meter canvas, she painted portraits of 100 giant pandas in different poses.

"I learned painting at the age of five and started to focus on giant pandas at the age of ten," the 21-year painter said, adding she has scored a dozen top prizes in international painting competitions "with the help of the giant pandas."

Zeng was also entitled "global envoy of peace and friendship" during a meeting with world celebrities, including Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the International Olympic Committee, and Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader.

Wang Baoqiang said the giant panda, as a unique species of China, was always regarded as an envoy of friendship ever since ancient China's Tang Dynasty, when a pair of giant pandas were presented to Japan as a gift of good will. After New China was founded in 1949, China presented a total of 24 giant pandas to nine foreign countries, including Russia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Mexico, Spain and Germany.

In 1972 when US President Richard Nixon visited China, a pair of giant pandas, Ling Ling and Xing Xing, was presented to the United States. They received a warm welcome from 8,000 US people upon their arrival, Wang added.

"The giant panda also helps connect people of the mainland and Hong Kong," Wang said, explaining that a pair of giant pandas presented to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1999 is now enjoying a healthy and comfortable life there.

Zeng the painter said that she plans to donate some of her works along with the giant pandas scheduled to be presented to Taiwan.

"I hope the image of Chinese giant panda spreads worldwide, to draw people's attention and care for these animals and the world we shared together," said well-known French painter Pierre Amiel, who gave a personal exhibition in Beijing for the France-China Culture Year, advocated by leaders of the two countries.

Embassy officials from the US, France, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Japan and Iraq all gave their blessings to the beloved Niu Niu at the zoo.

The giant pandas, said to have been living on earth since the time of the dinosaurs, are cited as a Chinese three-million-year "national gem." About 1,590 giant pandas live in the wild, mostly in the high mountains around southwest China's Sichuan Basin.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2005)