China could send more pandas to the U.S., Chinese President Xi Jinping suggests
Chinese President Xi Jinping has indicated China will continue to send pandas to the United States following his meeting with President Biden in California.
During remarks at a dinner with business leaders in San Francisco Wednesday night, the leader of the People's Republic of China appeared poised to rekindle its so-called "panda diplomacy" with the U.S. after tensions between the countries threatened the future of the agreement. The program refers to the decades-long practice of the Chinese government gifting or loaning giant pandas to other countries as a form of goodwill.
"Pandas have long been envoys of friendship between China and the U.S.," Xi said, the Associated Press reported. "We are ready to continue our cooperation on panda protection with the U.S., and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples."
Xi said he was told that Americans, including children, "were really reluctant to say goodbye" to three pandas – Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji – from the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington D.C. to China earlier this month. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian came to the zoo in 2000 and were meant to just stay 10 years for a research and breeding program, but their stay was extended several times.
The National Zoo received its first pandas from China — Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling — in 1972 in an effort to save the species by breeding them. The zoo has had pandas ever since – until the trio was returned recently.
Xi also said he learned the San Diego Zoo "and the Californian people very much look forward to welcoming pandas back." That zoo housed two pandas and they gave birth to six others. However, all of them were returned to China in 2019.
Xi's comments come after he met with Mr. Biden at the Filoli Historic House & Garden in Woodside, California, just outside of San Francisco. Mr. Biden announced both nations would be "reassuming military-to-military contact" and restarting cooperation with China on counternarcotics.
Only four giant pandas remain in the U.S. and all of them are at the Atlanta Zoo, which is home to Lun Lun and Yang Yang and their offspring, Ya Lun and Xi Lun. Currently, China's agreement with the zoo is that the younger cubs will returned at the end of 2024 and their parents are expected to come back as well. The loan agreement, which was put in place in the mid-1990s, expires in 2024 and the zoo says there has been no discussion to extend it.
Caitlin O'Kane contributed.