Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that two giant pandas from China will arrive at Zoo Atlanta in the coming days, bolstering a loan program that at one time had lapsed as part of tensions between Beijing and Washington. China and the zoo had said in April that Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, would go to the United States. But Xi's announcement at the White House, in opening remarks before talks with President Trump, marked the first public confirmation of the timing, the AP reports. Beijing reclaimed four pandas from Atlanta in 2024, the last of the animals on loan from China to the US at the time.
The pandas are part of a conservation agreement between the zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. Both pandas were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. In 2024, Lun Lun, Yang Yang, Ya Lun, and Xi Lun returned from Zoo Atlanta to China, ending a 25-year partnership and leaving the US without any of the animals for several months. The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023 before accepting new arrivals Bao Li and Qing Bao in October 2024.
China has used pandas as "diplomatic tools" for more than 50 years, the Washington Post reports. The Chinese government gave Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing to the US as gifts in 1972 after Richard Nixon's historic visit to China. "The giant panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans," Xi said Thursday. US lawmakers, meanwhile, want Trump to confront the Chinese leader over a less cuddly export: Shipments of drone and missile components to Iran.
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