Two giant pandas depart China for Zoo Atlanta

Two giant pandas departed Chengdu in south-western China early on Sunday for their new homes in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of an agreement between the Chinese and US governments.

While in Washington DC for a three-day summit with Donald Trump, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced that the pandas would arrive in Atlanta in the coming days. The loan of the pandas to the Atlanta zoo was one of the few concrete outcomes to come out of Xi’s state visit with the US president, which saw expressions of goodwill between the leaders, but no fixes to any of the longstanding differences between the two countries.

Atlanta said farewell to its last pandas in 2024, leaving the zoo without the bears. The new agreement was announced back in April, but without any dates.

Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are the two adult pandas that will be on loan to Zoo Atlanta for 10 years as part of the agreement. Both pandas were born in 2020 and were kept at the Chengdu research base of giant panda breeding. Ping Ping, the male, has dark black circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang, the female, has a forehead that protrudes a bit, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

China has long used the pandas as part of its diplomacy globally, deploying the bears in loan programs as expressions of goodwill and letting loan agreements lapse when tensions arise.

Xi had said the loan program was an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans”.