With its last three giant pandas set to be returned to China in December, the Smithsonian National Zoo will no longer have any pandas for the first time in 50 years.
After former President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, the communist regime adopted “panda diplomacy” at the National Zoo in Washington D.C., which has since continually hosted giant pandas from China symbolizing the warming of U.S.–China relations.
Other zoos in the United States and other Western countries are also returning giant pandas to China. China observers believe that the “panda diplomacy” that represented the communist regime’s soft power is coming to an end, as the world is derisking and decoupling from it.
After the giant pandas at the National Zoo are sent back to China, there will only be four pandas remaining in the United States, at the Atlanta Zoo. Two of them are set to be sent back to China early next year. The other two are likely to return to China before the end of next year as the lease agreement expires. There aren’t any discussions regarding lease extension or renewal.
‘Panda Diplomacy’
The first pair of pandas were gifted by China to the National Zoo in 1972 after President Nixon’s historic visit to China that year, which opened the door for the Chinese communist regime to enter the international community.During the visit, former First Lady Pat Nixon went to the Beijing Zoo to see the giant pandas. Seeing her fondness for the giant pandas, the communist regime’s then-premier Zhou Enlai gifted two giant pandas named Lingling and Xingxing to the United States, which sent a signal of rapprochement between the two countries. The communist regime officially started its “Panda Diplomacy” to soften its image in the international community.
As heads of Western countries visited China after President Nixon’s trip, gifting giant pandas became a “standard procedure” for the CCP’s diplomacy for the next ten years.
From 1973 to 1983, the CCP successively gifted giant pandas to countries such as Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, and Germany. “Panda diplomacy” has gradually become a diplomatic tool for the CCP.
Song Guocheng, a researcher at the International Relations Research Center of National Chengchi University in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times that “panda diplomacy” is a type of public relations image diplomacy. “Because pandas are very cute and look innocent, they [the CCP] use them to create a friendly impression, so pandas are turned into panda diplomacy [tools].”
In 1984, Beijing stopped giving away giant pandas for free, and instead implemented a high-priced rental model, leasing them to foreign zoos for short-term exhibitions.
Pandas as Political Leverage
Australia, France, and Canada have all received giant pandas after agreeing to sell nuclear technology and uranium to China. Scotland received a pair of giant pandas in 2011 as part of a deal to share offshore drilling technology and supply salmon to China. The Dutch leased a giant panda in 2013 as the Netherlands agreed to provide high-end medical equipment to China.The CCP has also used the giant pandas as a tool of punishment for other countries.
In 2019, amid the intensified trade war between the United States and China, the CCP took back the giant panda “Bai Yun” and its cub, “Xiao Liwu” from the San Diego Zoo.
In September this year, after the Netherlands followed the United States in restricting the sale of advanced semiconductor processor chip equipment to China, the CCP took back the 3-year-old giant panda Fanxing from a Dutch zoo.
Amid the current tensions between the United States and China, all the giant pandas at the zoos in Memphis and San Diego have already returned to China.
If the existing leasing agreements are not renewed, the United Kingdom will return its last two giant pandas in December, and Australia will return its giant pandas to China next year.
Feng Chongyi, associate professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, told The Epoch Times: “Friendship [between the Chinese regime and the United States] no longer exists, giant pandas are so expensive, and about 80 percent of [U.S.] people hold a negative view of China (CCP), so the giant pandas in Washington have no political value anymore.”
Mr. Feng continued: “Many countries, including the United States, European countries, the United Kingdom, and Australia, have sent pandas back to China, which means that the relationship has collapsed and they are no longer friends [with the CCP]. Now it is about decoupling, de-risking, and exiting China as a risk.”
Regarding Mr. Xi’s potential meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the upcoming APEC meeting and if he may again use the method of “panda diplomacy” to ease the tensions between the two countries by giving more pandas to the United States, Mr. Song believes it’s unlikely.
“Without any improvement in U.S.–China relations at the structural level, it is unlikely to launch a second panda diplomacy [push].”
Mr. Song said that with all pandas in American zoos returning to China, it indicates that the CCP’s panda diplomacy has already gone bankrupt.
“Panda diplomacy has lost its significance now. It’s still unclear whether Xi Jinping will go to the APEC.
“[The United States] is to maintain the status quo of the international order, and [the CCP] is to overturn it. This is a kind of confrontation between police and gangsters. There are no factors or signs that in the next few years, this structural confrontation between the United States and China can be resolved,” he said.
