Lending pandas to foreign zoos is a useful soft power tool for Beijing, but tense international relations are clouding the practice.
Mei Xiang at the Smithsonian's National Zoo, Washington, D.C., April 19, 2025. Credit: Smithsonian's National Zoo via Flickr
China’s cutest cultural ambassadors are heading back. Three pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and Xiao Qi Ji — left for China on November 8, saying goodbye to their former home at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington DC. Their departure, along with those at other American zoos, looks set to leave the U.S. panda-free for the first time since rapprochement with China began in 1972, unless warming ties between the two countries continue.
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Agriculture has traditionally been a fruitful area for China-U.S. cooperation, dating back to the two countries’ resumption of diplomatic relations in the 1970s. Now it is just another area marked by Sino-American distrust, as Washington hunts Chinese agriscience “spies” and Beijing races to reduce reliance on U.S. farm exports.
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