China’s giant panda loan program has long been a tool of diplomacy, but its significance for species conservation has proved important, too. That could have been an important reason why Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos and sending new pandas while bilateral relations are otherwise low.
China ’s panda diplomacy may have one true winner: the giant pandas themselves. After decades of global efforts, the number of giant pandas in captivity and in the wild has risen. The animal is no longer considered at risk of extinction but is given the safer status of vulnerable. Chinese experts say the next step is to help the species grow by releasing more captive pandas to the wild. Bei Bei, a male giant panda, born in Smithsonian’s National Zoo in the U.S.
“We carry out scientific and research cooperation with San Diego Zoo and the zoo in Washington in the U.S., as well as European countries. They are more advanced in aspects such as veterinary medicine, genetics and vaccination, and we learn from them,” said Zhang Hemin, chief expert at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in the southwestern Chinese city of Ya’an.
But “it doesn’t change the political discussion one whit,” Bodine said. “Public diplomacy can do only so much. It does not change the geopolitical, economic calculations. People don’t go home after the zoo to be OK for the U.S. to be flooded with cheap EVs from the panda land.”Zhang said there are benefits from sending pandas overseas.
While Western research leads in genetic studies, China excels at feeding and behavioral training, he said. “It’s mutually complementary,” Zhang said. The ultimate goal, researchers say, is to help the bears return to the wild and survive, and a larger captive-bred panda population is the foundation for that effort.
Under this kind of new arrangement, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived at the National Zoo in 2000, with the ultimate goal of saving giant pandas in the wild. Over the 23 years Mei Xiang lived in the U.S. capital, she gave birth to four living cubs: Tai Shan in 2005, Bao Bao in 2013, Bei Bei in 2015, and Xiao Qi Ji in 2020. All have been returned to China.
Over the years, it has raised tens of millions of dollars to run the zoo’s panda conservation program, including an annual fee of $1 million to the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
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