- Chinese President Xi Jinping says 2 pandas will arrive in Atlanta ‘in a few days,’ continuing a diplomatic tradition closely associated with Nixon’s 1972 China visit
- Once goodwill gifts, pandas now travel under conservation agreements that support research, breeding and habitat protection
- Atlanta’s incoming pair will bring US giant panda population to 6, as renewed loans offer a sign of cooperation amid wider tensions
Two giant pandas heading from China to Atlanta will join a diplomatic tradition that has linked American zoos and Chinese leaders for more than eight decades.
“In a few days, two pandas – Ping Ping and Fu Shuang – will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people,” Chinese President Xi Jinping announced Thursday before talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House.
"The giant panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans," he added, giving a familiar symbol of cooperation a place alongside much-anticipated discussions of trade, geopolitics and technology competition.
The pandas’ destination was already known. Zoo Atlanta announced the agreement in April, identifying Ping Ping as a male and Fu Shuang as a female, both born at China’s Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
Xi’s remarks supplied the arrival timeframe.
But how did these furry, bamboo-eating bears become symbols of US-China diplomacy?
How it started
China’s use of pandas as diplomatic gifts predates the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Some accounts trace panda diplomacy back to the seventh century, when Empress Wu Zetian reportedly sent pandas to Japan during the Tang dynasty.
The practice reemerged in the 20th century.
In 1941, two young pandas, Pan-dee and Pan-dah, arrived at New York’s Bronx Zoo as gifts from Madame Chiang Kai-shek, China’s first lady, thanking Americans for aid to China during its war with Japan, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s archives.
The animals were initially thought to be a breeding pair, but both turned out to be female.
In the following decades, the People’s Republic sent pandas to friendly countries, including the Soviet Union and North Korea.
The animals offered China an unusual diplomatic advantage in that wild giant pandas live only in China, making access to them a distinctive gesture of goodwill.
Their appeal also extended beyond government officials. A panda could draw crowds to a zoo and generate public interest in a country that many visitors knew little about.
The 1972 breakthrough
The best-known episode in US-China panda diplomacy followed President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972.
The visit helped end more than two decades of estrangement between Washington and Beijing, although formal diplomatic relations were not established until 1979.
During the visit, Nixon’s wife, first lady Pat, mentioned that she liked pandas after seeing them at a Beijing zoo.
Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai responded by offering two pandas to the American people.
Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrived at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington and were an instant sensation. More than 20,000 people came on the first day, and the following Sunday about 75,000 visitors formed a line a quarter-mile long.
The US reciprocated with a pair of musk oxen, Milton and Matilda.
The musk oxen had a rougher start. Time magazine reported they suffered "culture shock," with runny noses and hair loss, though they eventually recovered.
From gifts to conservation loans
China moved away from giving pandas outright in the 1980s, turning instead to loans. Over time, long-term conservation and research agreements became the basis for overseas placements.
Such arrangements commonly run for about 10 years and can involve annual payments of around $1 million per pair. Under modern loan agreements, the pandas and their offspring remain Chinese property.
The shift to loans gave panda diplomacy a stronger conservation focus, with zoos contributing funding and expertise to breeding, research and habitat protection.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as endangered in 1984 and adopted a conservation-focused panda permit policy in 1998, requiring all panda imports to directly benefit the conservation of pandas in the wild rather than serving short-term commercial exhibition.
The arrangement has been productive. US zoos have successfully raised 17 giant panda cubs – six in San Diego, four in Washington and seven in Atlanta – according to Chinese state media.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature reclassified giant pandas from endangered to vulnerable in 2016, citing a 17% population increase over the decade to 2014, when a nationwide census counted 1,864 in the wild in China, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
What do panda movements tell us?
Panda arrivals and departures often attract attention far beyond the zoos involved.
As US-China relations deteriorated in recent years, the departure of pandas from American zoos became a particularly visible symbol of the tensions.
In November 2023, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo returned its three pandas to China as their loan agreement expired, leaving Zoo Atlanta as the only US zoo housing giant pandas.
Later that month, after meeting then-President Joe Biden in California, Xi said China was ready to continue panda conservation cooperation with the US – a gesture of goodwill amid efforts to stabilize relations.
A new pair arrived in San Diego in June 2024, before Atlanta’s four pandas departed that October. Another pair arrived in Washington later the same month.
Four giant pandas are currently in the US. Atlanta’s incoming pair would bring the total to six, compared with a historical peak of 15 reported by CNN.
Atlanta’s next chapter
Zoo Atlanta’s original panda partnership began in 1999 and lasted 25 years. Its pandas produced seven cubs during that period.
The return of its four remaining bears in October 2024 closed that chapter, but the new agreement announced in April opened another.
For Atlanta, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang will restore a major attraction and renew a research partnership. For Beijing, their arrival offers another opportunity to present cooperation with the US through animals that have long drawn American crowds.
Their arrival will not settle disputes over tariffs or AI regulation. But the two bears will offer an adorable reminder that Washington and Beijing still have room for friendship.
