Diplomacy
The panda has been a gift between nations since the Tang dynasty. From Empress Wu Zetian's pair sent to Japan, to Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arriving after Nixon's 1972 visit, to today's decade-long breeding loans, "panda diplomacy" has made the animal one of the most political creatures on Earth.
Part of The Giant Panda
15 moments in this segment.
- - The first panda diplomacy. According to the chronicles, the Tang Empress Wu Zetian sends a pair of giant pandas (and seventy panda furs) as a gift to the Emperor of Japan. It is the earliest recorded instance of "panda diplomacy", the giving of pandas to seal goodwill between states, a tradition that will run for thirteen centuries.
- - Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrive in Washington. After President Nixon's historic February 1972 visit to China, Beijing gifts the United States two giant pandas. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrive at the Smithsonian's National Zoo on 16 April 1972 to enormous crowds, the warm, fuzzy symbol of a Cold War thaw.
- - Watch - the history of panda diplomacy. How China has used the giant panda as a tool of statecraft for over a thousand years, from Tang-dynasty gifts to the Nixon-era pandas to today's multimillion-dollar breeding loans.
- - From gifts to loans. In 1984 China ends the era of giving pandas away. Henceforth pandas travel abroad only on loan, typically ten-year leases at around a million dollars a year, with any cubs remaining Chinese property. Conservation funding and diplomacy fuse into a single, carefully managed system.
- - Tian Tian and Mei Xiang come to the National Zoo. A new pair, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, arrive at the National Zoo in Washington on a ten-year breeding loan, reviving the capital's panda tradition. Over the next two decades they raise a series of celebrated cubs and become fixtures of American zoo life.
- - The pandas leave Washington. On 8 November 2023, Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and their cub Xiao Qi Ji depart the National Zoo for China as their loan ends and none is renewed, leaving the United States, for a moment, almost panda-free. Their crated flight home is watched live by millions as a barometer of US-China relations.
- - The returned pandas of Sichuan. With the arrival of Fu Bao from South Korea, the group of pandas repatriated to China at the end of overseas loans continues to grow. The report visits the enclosures where the returning animals are settled.
- - Atlanta's four bears go home. Zoo Atlanta confirmed that its four giant pandas would return to China in the last quarter of 2024, ending the longest running American loan outside Washington. For a period the United States held no pandas at all.
- - How panda diplomacy works. Reuters sets out the mechanics of the practice, from outright gifts to the leases and breeding agreements that replaced them. It explains why the animals are described in Chinese diplomatic language as envoys of friendship.
- - A new pair returns: Bao Li and Qing Bao. In October 2024 a fresh pair of young pandas, Bao Li and Qing Bao, arrive at the National Zoo under a new agreement, panda diplomacy resumes after the 2023 departures. Bao Li is, fittingly, a grandson of Mei Xiang: the Washington panda line comes full circle.
- - Adelaide's new arrivals. Xing Qiu and Yi Lan settled into Adelaide Zoo after arriving from China over the holiday period. The Australian public broadcaster explains their journey and why the placement mattered to the zoo.
- - Two pandas for Vienna. Lan Yuan and He Feng, both five years old, arrived at Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna in May 2025. Their placement followed the return of the zoo's previous pair to China in late 2024 and belongs to a fresh round of loan agreements.
- - Japan prepares to give up its pandas. Tokyo announced that the twin pandas at Ueno Zoo would go back to China in January 2026. It would be the first time since 1972 that Japan held none, and the report links the decision to a downturn in relations between the two countries.
- - Japan says goodbye. Japan's last two giant pandas were flown back to China after thousands of visitors gathered at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo to see them off. The broadcaster presents the departure as a reflection of the sharp cooling between Tokyo and Beijing.
- - Atlanta signs for a new pair. Fu Shuang and Ping Ping are to travel from China to Zoo Atlanta under a ten-year conservation agreement. The report treats the placement as part of a revival of the exchanges that began in 1972.
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