Two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, touched down in Atlanta recently, a week after President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping met in Washington. The summit yielded no immediate breakthroughs on trade, Taiwan, or AI, but it did deliver a soft-power win: the pair, both born in 2020 at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, are on a ten-year loan to Zoo Atlanta.
For Beijing, the panda is a national treasure, and every animal sent abroad remains Chinese property. The loan of a pair is a signal of favor—a way to draw crowds and underscore that the relationship matters. When ties sour, the bears often come home, as seen when Washington's pandas returned in November 2023 amid strained relations. This is panda diplomacy, a practice that has evolved over centuries.
From imperial gifts to commercial rentals
The tradition may date back to the Tang dynasty, when Empress Wu Zetian reportedly sent a pair of bears to Japan. But the modern era began in 1941, when Chiang Kai-shek's government gifted pandas to the Bronx Zoo in gratitude for American aid. Mao Zedong turned it into policy: in 1957, he sent a panda to the Soviet Union, and by 1982, China had given away 23 pandas to nine countries. The most famous pair, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, arrived in Washington in 1972 to mark Nixon's historic visit, drawing over 20,000 visitors on their first day and more than a million in their first year.
Under Deng Xiaoping's reforms, gifts became rentals in 1984. Pandas went on lucrative tours—the Los Angeles Zoo paid $100,000 a month for a pair during the 1984 Olympics. But not everyone was charmed. Conservation groups like the New York Zoological Society criticized the tours as money-making ventures. In 1988, a judge barred the Toledo Zoo from charging extra to see its pandas after protests. By 1993, the US Fish and Wildlife Service halted new import permits, and when they resumed in 1998, rules required that a significant share of fees go toward protecting wild pandas in China.
Today's arrangement is a long-term “research” loan, typically ten years and up to $1 million annually, with any cub born abroad remaining Chinese property. The rules changed, but the loans still follow Beijing's interests. Researchers at Oxford University found that loans after 2008 often coincided with trade deals. Malaysia received Xing Xing and Liang Liang in 2014 to mark 40 years of bilateral ties, and similar patterns have been observed with other partners.
A conservation success story
China's conservation efforts began in the early 1960s with the first panda reserves and a hunting ban. The Chengdu base opened in 1987 with six rescued wild pandas, and a national program followed in 1993. When a bamboo die-off in 2005 caused starvation, rescuers brought many pandas into captivity. Today, there are 67 reserves and a Giant Panda National Park. Wild numbers have risen from 1,114 in the mid-1980s to 1,864 by 2014, and in 2016, pandas were moved off the endangered list.
The Chengdu base, a tourist magnet, breeds pandas for display and diplomacy. Releasing them is the job of a separate state body, the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRC). Its scientists argue that releases are replenishing fragile wild populations, making every zoo panda—including those lent abroad—a lifeline for wild ones. Some skeptics question this claim.
Rewilding: a mixed record
The CCRC began moving pandas to the wild in 2003. Its first, Xiang Xiang, was found dead within a year. Of the dozen released since then, ten have survived, while more than 700 remain in captivity. The only permanently released panda known to have had a cub, Luxin, was born wild. Since 2017, previously captive females temporarily moved to the forest to mate with wild males have produced 14 cubs, 12 of them surviving.
Chinese scientists say the pandemic slowed the rewilding project, but its lack of success has drawn criticism from those who believe it should have had more emphasis and investment. So far, attempts to replenish wild populations have not been as successful as hoped, and only small groups of giant pandas survive in the wild.
Nevertheless, China's blend of trade and conservation in zoos continues to generate significant public relations wins. Each new announcement of pandas heading to a foreign zoo attracts international attention and symbolizes a renewed trading and foreign policy relationship. That's something Beijing will no doubt want to keep building on, as seen in the recent Trump-Xi summit and ongoing trade tensions with Europe.
