Has China’s Panda Diplomacy Lost Its Charm? It’s Not So Black-and-White

The practice gained traction after the National Zoo received giant pandas from Beijing in the wake of President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972, which marked a new, positive chapter in U.S.-China relations. 

China claims ownership of nearly all the giant pandas in the world, even their offspring, and controls who receives them. Beijing eventually shifted from gifting giant pandas to leasing them to other countries in 1984 as the animal’s population dwindled, but the practice continued and spread to other nations like Austria, Canada, and Malaysia. China regularly considers loaning pandas an act of goodwill—even when the host nation typically foots the bill of about $1 million annually for a pair. 

A giant panda’s presence or absence in a country tends to represent ebbs and flows of its relationship with China. For instance, amid tensions with Japan over Taiwan, Tokyo returned two giant pandas to Sichuan on loan in January, marking the first time Japan does not have a giant panda since 1972, when China-Japan ties first normalized. In 2010, two U.S.-born panda cubs returned to China, days after Chinese officials warned then-President Barack Obama against meeting the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing considers a separatist.