How Beijing Combines Conservation And Trade In Panda Diplomacy

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But it was Mao Zedong who turned the gesture into policy. In 1957 he sent a panda, also called Ping Ping, to the Soviet Union, and by 1982 China had given away 23 pandas to nine countries. The most famous pair, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were sent to Washington to commemorate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing. They drew more than 20,000 people to the Smithsonian national zoo on their first day and an estimated 1.1 million in their first year.

Under Deng Xiaoping's reforms, gifts became rentals in 1984, and pandas went on short, lucrative tours. The Los Angeles zoo paid US$100,000 a month for a pair during the 1984 Olympics.

Not everyone was charmed. Conservation groups such as The New York Zoological Society viewed the tours as money-making ventures. In 1988, when the Toledo zoo hosted a pair for 100 days it attracted protests. A judge barred the zoo from charging visitors extra to see them. In 1993 the US Fish and Wildlife Service stopped issuing new import permits. When it resumed in 1998, the new rules said a significant share of the money should protect wild pandas in China.

The result is today's arrangement: long-term“research” loans, usually for ten years and up to US$1 million a year, with any cub born abroad remaining Chinese property. The rules changed, but the loans still follow Beijing's interests. University of Oxford researchers found that loans after 2008 often coincided with trade deals. Malaysia received Xing Xing and Liang Liang in 2014 to mark 40 years of ties. And as relations with Washington soured, its pandas flew home in November 2023.

A conservation story

China set up its first panda reserves and banned hunting in the early 1960s. The Chengdu base opened in 1987 with six rescued wild pandas.

A national panda program followed in 1993. When a mass die-off of bamboo happened in 2005 and pandas starved, rescuers brought many into captivity. Today there are 67 reserves and a Giant Panda National Park. Wild numbers rose from 1,114 in the mid-1980s to 1,864 by 2014, and in 2016 pandas were moved off the endangered list.

The Chengdu base, a tourist magnet, breeds pandas for display and diplomacy. Releasing them is the job of a separate state body, the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRC). Its scientists say releases are replenishing fragile wild populations. They claim that this makes every zoo panda, including those lent abroad, a lifeline for wild ones. Some are skeptical about this claim.

Two decades of releases

The CCRC began moving pandas to the wild in 2003. Its first, Xiang Xiang, was found dead within a year. Of the dozen released since then, ten have survived, while more than 700 remain in captivity.

The only permanently released panda known to have had a cub, Luxin, was born wild.