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The Washington National Zoo’s three giant pandas, Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji, will return to China in December and so far there are no public signs that the agreement signed 50 years ago, which allows this exchange, will continue.
Pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived in Washington in 2000 and have since had four surviving cubs. Among them, Xiao Qi Ji (“little miracle”), who was born in 2020. They will all leave in December to return to China.
These bears have been, for decades, one of the main attractions in zoos in the United States. The first of them arrived from China in 1972, as a gift after a historic visit by then-President Richard Nixon to the Asian nation.
Today, more than half a century later, Washington says goodbye to its gangs in the midst of a bitter context between the United States and China, with growing tensions over Taiwan and continuing trade disputes between the two powers.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington DC bid farewell to its giant pandas by hosting a 9-day-long event for Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and their 4th cub Xiao Qi Ji, who will all return to China in December. pic.twitter.com/0OFLKuPWHb
— People’s Daily, China (@PDChina) October 2, 2023
The panda exhibit is about to close at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, at least temporarily ending a decades-long connection between the Chinese-origin animal and the American capital.
Last weekend, the zoo started the ‘Panda Palooza’ event, a week for thousands of fans to say goodbye to the three specimens.
“Panda diplomacy”: China’s revenge against the West?
The pandas’ relationship has had all kinds of overtones: from political to economic.
Since initiating the exchange program and recognizing the species’ amazing ability to attract hobbyists, China has continued to loan pandas to Washington and other zoos around the world, in what has since been dubbed ‘Panda Diplomacy’.
Not in vain, during Xi Jinping’s state visit in 2015, the last by a Chinese leader to the United States, his wife and the then American first lady held an official ceremony to reveal the name of panda cub Bei Bei.
But today ties with China are more than deteriorated. And while the pandas’ departure was expected due to contractual obligations, many can’t help but see the change as a reflection of growing tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow at the US-China Dialogue Initiative on Global Issues at Georgetown University, said: “The Chinese are angry at us. They are angry about the restrictions on semiconductors, the number of sanctions the Biden administration has imposed on them, and the problems they now have getting visas to the United States. Therefore, it is very possible that they are trying to send a signal.”
Wilder added that “the Chinese could be removing their pandas from Western zoos. “I don’t see them doing the same thing in places like Doha and Thailand.”
The departure of Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and Xiao Qi Ji is just one of many. The San Diego Zoo returned its own in 2019, and the last bear at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo returned home earlier this year.
The only giant pandas left in the United States are at Zoo Atlanta. But that loan deal expires at the end of next year.
With Reuters and AP
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