BEIJING — Atlanta could have large pandas once more.
China on Friday introduced it’ll ship two large pandas to Zoo Atlanta within the U.S., in Beijing’s newest efforts of panda diplomacy regardless of tensions with Washington, and fewer than a month earlier than a much-anticipated go to by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing.
The China Wildlife Conservation Affiliation stated in an announcement that male panda Ping Ping and feminine panda Fu Shuang, from the Chengdu Analysis Base of Large Panda Breeding, will kick off a decade-long conservation cooperation underneath an settlement it signed with the zoo final 12 months.
The affiliation didn’t specify their departure date however stated the U.S. facet was actively finishing up facility upgrades, amongst different preparation work, to create a extra comfy and safer setting for the pair. Within the meantime, Chinese language specialists have been offering technical steering on the upgrades, it stated.
The announcement got here weeks forward of Trump’s deliberate go to to China in mid-Could, throughout which he’s anticipated to debate numerous points, together with commerce, together with his counterpart Xi Jinping.
Zoo Atlanta stated in an announcement Thursday that it was delighted and honored to be trusted as stewards of the pandas and to companion with the affiliation.
“We are able to’t wait to fulfill Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our members, visitors, metropolis, and neighborhood again to the surprise and pleasure of large pandas,” the zoo’s president, Raymond B. King, stated.
Throughout an earlier large panda settlement between the zoo and China that concluded in 2024, pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang gave delivery to seven bears, the zoo stated. Lun Lun and Yang Yan and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, the place the remainder of their offspring reside, it stated.
China’s large panda mortgage program has lengthy been often called a instrument of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy, however its conservation significance might have been an essential motive Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos at a time of in any other case bitter relations.
The affiliation stated Friday that the brand new spherical of cooperation will assist China and the U.S. to yield extra ends in areas starting from illness prevention and therapy to scientific exchanges.
Large pandas have lengthy been a logo of the U.S.-China friendship, ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the Nationwide Zoo in Washington in 1972.
In 2024, the Nationwide Zoo in Washington and the San Diego Zoo additionally acquired pandas from China.
