Panda Diplomacy
What is panda diplomacy?
How did panda diplomacy change in the mid-1980s?
What happened to panda diplomacy in 2023?
Panda diplomacy is China’s practice of using giant pandas as a way to cultivate global friendship and cooperation. Perhaps the most famous example involved first lady Pat Nixon during Pres. Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 presidential visit to China. The first lady’s souvenir from the trip arrived at the National Zoo two months after the trip in the form of giant pandas Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling.
Early history of panda diplomacy
Because wild giant pandas are native to the bamboo forests of central China and have a limited habitat and range, China has a monopoly on the species. The country has leveraged this monopoly over the years as part of its diplomatic efforts to develop foreign relations and improve its public image. Panda diplomacy is believed to date back to the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce) when Empress Wuhou sent pandas to Japan as diplomatic gifts. In the 20th century this act of gifting pandas was revived. The month before the United States entered World War II in 1941, China sent a pair of pandas to the Bronx Zoo as a gift to the United States for “alleviating the sufferings of our people and binding our wounds,” Chiang Kai-shek said, announcing the gift. In the 1950s the practice of sending pandas was ramped up as Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong gifted them to China’s communist allies, including the then Soviet Union and North Korea.
In February 1972 Richard Nixon became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China. Nixon dubbed the trip “the week that changed the world.” While the president and Chinese officials met to talk high-level global affairs, Pat Nixon visited cultural landmarks, including a stop at the then Peking Zoo, where she was smitten by the pandas. Later in the trip during an official dinner, she expressed her delight to China’s Premier Zhou Enlai, saying of the animals, “Aren’t they cute? I love them.” He responded, “I’ll give you some.”
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Two months later, on April 16, 1972, Nixon welcomed giant pandas Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. In exchange, the United States sent musk oxen Matilda and Milton to China. On the first day of their exhibit, the pandas drew 20,000 visitors. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing died in 1992 and 1999, respectively. In the years after Nixon’s visit, China continued to send pandas to zoos in the United States.
During the mid-1980s the nature of panda diplomacy shifted away from gifting pandas to other countries to loaning them. Many analysts argued that the model change was because of the endangered status of the species, allowing panda diplomacy to include cooperation on conservation and research efforts. Under the loan conditions, recipient institutions typically pay an annual fee of $1 million for a pair of pandas, which China continues to own. Any pandas born abroad are generally required to be returned to China before their fourth birthday to continue conservation work.
Panda diplomacy in the 21st century
According to some experts, panda diplomacy underwent another transition in the early 21st century, as the practice of loaning the bears—or not loaning them—seemed to coincide with economic and political factors. Scholars have observed that Norway, a long-term salmon trading partner with China, faced additional import restrictions for salmon in 2011 after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese literary critic Liu Xiaobo. China then sent a pair of pandas to the Edinburgh Zoo shortly before signing a trade deal opening the Chinese market to Scottish salmon exporters.
In 2023 China recalled four pandas living in U.S. zoos (three from Washington, D.C., and one from Tennessee) because of the expiration of their lease agreements for the bears. Regional experts, however, argued that the action—which would have left the United States without pandas for the first time since 1972—may have been in response to increasingly strained U.S.-China relations in the 2020s, especially over security issues. Similarly, in 2023 pandas living in the Edinburgh Zoo were returned to China, a move some believe may have been connected to the souring relationship between China and the United Kingdom. Experts speculated that recalls of pandas in the United States and the United Kingdom signified the end of panda diplomacy.
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However, during the 2023 U.S.-China summit in San Francisco, Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping stated, “We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples.” In February 2024 the China Wildlife Conservation Association announced that it had reached a new loan agreement to send pandas to the United States and Spain. In August 2024 Yun Chuan and Xin Bao made their debut at the San Diego Zoo. In October 2024 Bao Li and Qing Bao arrived at the National Zoo in Washington. In 2026, two additional pandas landed in Atlanta at the same time Xi was meeting with U.S. Pres. Donald Trump in Washington. Xi called the panda and “envoy of friendship” between the two countries. Ping Ping and Fu Shuang will be on loan from China to the Atlanta Zoo for 10 years.
China has lent pandas to more than 18 countries in the early 21st century. Thanks to this international collaboration in conservation efforts through panda diplomacy, the species’ population has increased from about 1,200 in the 1980s to about 1,800 in the 2020s. Gifting or loaning pandas has played such a crucial role in China’s soft power diplomacy that Chinese ambassador Cui Tiankai said in a 2013 Washington Post article, “There are actually two Chinese ambassadors in Washington: me and the panda cub at the National Zoo.”
