Tokyo's zoo has been flooded with calls to refuse a pair of pandas offered by Chinese President Hu Jintao, fearing that the money from the loan would fund Beijing's clampdown in Tibet, officials said.

Hu, paying a rare fence-mending visit to Japan, offered to lease a male and female panda to replace one of the best-loved animals at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, Ling Ling, who died last week.

Ueno Zoo and the Tokyo local government, which runs it, have received scores of calls about the deal, which were overwhelmingly against, officials said. Opponents also put up posters on the walls at the zoo.

In the latest criticism, the leader of Chiba prefecture near Tokyo called on Japan to think carefully before accepting the animals.

Several people in Chiba prefecture fell ill earlier this year after eating Chinese-made dumplings, adding to a list of rows between the two countries, which also dispute lucrative energy fields.

"Be it the dumpling case or the oil field issue, it is imperative for countries that exercise political leadership in Asia to take matters seriously and find the right direction," said Chiba Governor Akiko Domoto, one of Japan's most prominent female politicians.

"We'd better not just get fooled by pandas," she told reporters.

Tokyo's Governor Shintaro Ishihara, an outspoken critic of China, has called on the zoo to study carefully whether bringing pandas would make financial sense by drawing more visitors.

"They are not divine. I don't care if they're there (at the zoo) or not," Ishihara said before Hu's visit.

Although the fee is undecided, the going rate is $1-million a year for a Japanese zoo to rent a panda, Tokyo metropolitan official Kazuomi Nishikiori told AFP.

Chinese and Japanese officials will hold talks next week about the proposed deal, he said.

'Hysterically condemned'

Hidemasa Hori, an Ueno Zoo official, said some callers to the zoo "hysterically condemn" the plan.

"There are others who call and say that Japan doesn't need to bow its head and pay money just to rent the pandas," he said.

Many callers cited China's crackdown on protests in Tibet, saying that the issue "is not really the rental fee per se, but more that Japan is supplying Beijing with money," he said.

However, Hori said the money to rent the pandas would go to a fund that helps preserve the natural habitat of the popular but endangered animals in southern China.

He also expected that the growing controversy at the zoo will "inevitably increase the flow of visitors, who will be driven by curiosity".

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) earlier this week appealed to Japan not to accept the pandas, saying they would be miserable in confinement.

"Pandas are an endangered species, not a commodity to be traded for human amusement," the US-based group said in a letter.

AFP