The San Diego Zoo’s newest giant pandas are on their way from China, marking the first time Beijing is loaning pandas to the U.S. in two decades. It’s the beginning of a new era in “panda diplomacy.”
Four-year-old male panda Yun Chuan and soon-to-be four-year-old female panda Xin Bao left China’s Sichuan province on Wednesday, June 26, for a ten-year stay in the U.S. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who attended the farewell in China, highlighted this as a key conservation partnership.
Zoo officials said the pandas won’t be viewable to the public for a few weeks as they get used to their new surroundings.
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The panda loan marks a step forward for relations between the U.S. and China as they try to repair ties strained by disputes over trade, technology, the status of Taiwan and other issues between the world’s two largest economies.
