Three giant pandas are set to return to their country of origin. As tensions between the United States and China heat up, a half-century-old exchange agreement ends. Come December, the National Zoo will likely be sans pandas.
Kelsey Lambert recently visited the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. She wore an “I Love Pandas” T-shirt and clutched a panda-covered diary. She and her mother trekked from San Antonio, Texas, just to see the pandas munching bamboo and rolling on the grass.
“It felt completely amazing,” 10-year-old Kelsey says. “My mom has always promised she would take me one day. So we had to do it now that they’re going away.”
The National Zoo’s three giant pandas—Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and their cub Xiao Qi Ji—will return to China in early December. There’s no sign that the exchange agreement struck in 1972 will continue.
Until now, the Chinese government has loaned giant pandas for a 10-year renewable term. The annual fee ranges from $1 million to $2 million per pair. Plus, any cub born to the pandas belongs to the Chinese government. China will lease a cub for an additional fee until it reaches mating age.
National Zoo officials are treating the remaining months with its pandas as the end of an era. The zoo just finished a weeklong celebration called “Panda Palooza: A Giant Farewell.”
Dennis Wilder studies U.S.-China issues. He notes that two other American zoos lost their giant pandas in recent years. Zoos in Scotland and Australia face similar panda partings. He says the Chinese could be “trying to send a signal.”
Wilder says Beijing believes “NATO and the United States are lining up against China.” He lists several points of disagreement between the two countries. These include restrictions on Chinese imports, distrust over Chinese social media platform TikTok, and the uproar over the Chinese balloon that floated over American airspace.
Beijing currently leases 65 giant pandas to 19 countries. The stated mission of the panda program is protecting the vulnerable species. Borrowers must return pandas to China when the bears reach old age. Cubs return to China around age three or four.
The San Diego, California, zoo returned its adult giant pandas in 2019. The last bear at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo went home earlier this year. The departure of the National Zoo’s bears would mean that the only giant pandas left in America are at the Atlanta Zoo in Georgia. That loan agreement expires late next year.
Panda-related tension even spilled into the U.S. Senate. Last week, Senator John Fetterman complained about Chinese purchases of American land. “I mean, [China is] taking back our pandas,” he says. “We should take back all their farmland.”
Observers wonder whether some kind of high-level agreement could still happen. Wilder points to an upcoming Asia-Pacific economic summit in November. He hopes President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping make headlines by breaking the panda deadlock.
For now, fans make panda pilgrimages to Washington for a last glimpse of the bears. If the pandas leave the country, Kelsey has a Plan B for viewing her favorite animal.
“We could always fly to China,” she says. “That works too.”
God made the beasts of the Earth according to their kinds. — Genesis 1:25
