Return of panda diplomacy: China to lend San Diego Zoo two giant pandas

Just months after some of the few remaining pandas in U.S. zoos were sent back to China with tensions between the two nations mounting, panda diplomacy is returning. The China Wildlife Conservation Association signed an agreement to send two giant pandas, a male and a female, to the San Diego Zoo.

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The announcement came months after a family of pandas who had lived at the Smithsonian National Zoo since 1972 was sent back to China, and as the last remaining family of pandas living in the U.S. at the Atlanta Zoo is set to return to China next year. According to San Diego Zoo officials, if all goes to plan, the zoo could welcome the new pandas as soon as the end of summer 2024. In return, the Associated Press reports, zoos typically pay the China Wildlife Conservation Association $1 million per year.

“We’re very excited and hopeful,” Vice President of Wildlife Conservation Science at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Megan Owen told the AP. “They’ve expressed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to re-initiate panda cooperation starting with the San Diego Zoo.”

At a meeting in San Francisco in November 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Biden reportedly talked about panda diplomacy, which has long been a part of U.S.-China relations. While those relations have been rocky, President Xi said at the meeting that China would again begin to lend the U.S. pandas to strengthen relations between our “two peoples.”

For more about the history of panda diplomacy, you can find our full report here.