Chinese President Xi Jinping announced this Thursday before his American counterpart, Donald Trump, that two new giant panda bears from China will arrive at the Atlanta Zoo in the coming days. This is the latest example of a curious geopolitical practice by Beijing, the so-called "panda diplomacy." For decades, China has sent giant pandas to other countries as a symbol of friendship and strengthening bilateral relations.
These animals, considered a Chinese national treasure, have been serving for decades as ambassadors and forms of soft power at key moments in the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. "In just a few days, giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang will arrive at Zoo Atlanta to meet the American public," Xi declared on Thursday before Trump, the first ladies and the delegations of the United States and China.
This gesture is added to the recent agreements between Beijing and Washington - such as the one reached after Xi's meeting with Joe Biden to send specimens to Washington - and comes after the previous return of animals at the conclusion of their contracts after 25 years on American soil. With this, China continues to use these charismatic animals to demonstrate its desire for understanding and lighten its complex relationship with the United States.
The story behind "panda diplomacy", since 1941
The operation of this mechanism has been mutating over the decades. The first instance of this practice dates back to 1941, at the initiative of 'Madame Chiang', Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, then president of the Kuomintang, who organized the sending of two specimens to the Bronx Zoo as a dramatic way of thanking the military and economic aid that the United States provided to China while the country was suffering the siege of Japan.
After a complex journey that included a failed attempt at an international radio broadcast from Chungking and a boat trip from the Philippines, the animals finally arrived in San Francisco. However, fate wanted that the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred just during his journey, so the coverage of the US entry into World War II dominated the front pages of the entire country and overshadowed the great media reception that had been planned for his arrival.
Between 1941 and 1984, coinciding with the Mao Zedong era since 1949, China formally gave the copies to the allied nations. During the Cold War, China began to use these gifts quite frequently. Between 1957 and 1983, the Chinese Communist Party Government sent 24 pandas to 9 countries such as the USSR, the USA, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea as symbols of friendship. A good example of this occurred after the historic visit of US President Richard Nixon to Beijing in 1972, which marked the beginning of the new "panda diplomacy."
However, since 1984, already under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Beijing changed the norm to replace gifts with long-term leasing or loan agreements. Under current conditions, receiving zoos pay annual fees of several hundred thousand dollars (funds that must be allocated in part to the conservation of the species in the wild), loans are usually agreed upon for about ten years, which can be extended, and any offspring born during the period remain the property of the People's Republic of China.
The case of Spain, the "most successful European country" for breeding pandas
In the case of Spain, the relationship with panda diplomacy is historical and especially close, being one of the first Western countries to establish this type of cooperation. The link formally began in 1978, after the official trip of King Juan Carlos and Sofia to China, which culminated with the arrival of the first couple to the country as a gift from Xiaoping. A few years later, in 1982, the famous Chulín was born at the Madrid Zoo, who became an icon as the first giant panda born in captivity in Europe.
Chu Lin was born by artificial insemination, after the female was inseminated with the semen of another male residing at the London Zoo. That little giant panda became a neighbor and icon of Madrid. Its name refers to a Mandarin term, which means "Treasure among the bamboos", in addition to resonating in a curious play on words with traditional references to the capital's cool inhabitants. Chu Lin died suddenly on April 30, 1996 at the Madrid Zoo as a result of undiagnosed prostatitis.
China's property laws on pandas and their offspring changed dramatically in the 1990s (moving to long-term research leases). In 2024, Beijing described Spain as the "most successful European country" in international breeding and conservation programs for this species. In total, six pandas have been born and survived in Spanish territory, an achievement based on the important scientific and veterinary advances shared between both countries in terms of health, disease prevention and reproduction in captivity.
