China treats the giant panda as a national treasure<\/a> and retains ownership every one it lends abroad. Sending a pair is a mark of favour: the bears draw crowds and signal Beijing values the relationship. When relations cool, the loans often seem to lapse<\/a> and the pandas return to China. This is panda diplomacy.<\/p>\n Some trace the practice to the Tang dynasty, when Empress Wu Zetian is said to have sent a pair of bears, believed to be pandas, to Japan<\/a>, between 624 and 725 AD. The better-documented history<\/a> begins in 1941, when Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s government sent a pair to New York\u2019s Bronx zoo as thanks for American aid.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, and by 1982 China had given away 23 pandas to nine countries<\/a>. The most famous pair, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were sent to Washington to commemorate<\/a> Richard Nixon\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under Deng Xiaoping\u2019s reforms, gifts became rentals in 1984<\/a>, and pandas went on short, lucrative tours. The Los Angeles zoo paid US$100,000<\/a> (\u00a375,500) a month for a pair during the 1984 Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not everyone was charmed. Conservation groups such as The New York Zoological Society viewed the tours as money-making ventures<\/a>. In 1988, when the Toledo zoo hosted a pair for 100 days<\/a> it attracted protests. A judge barred the zoo from charging visitors extra<\/a> 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n The result is today\u2019s arrangement: long-term \u201cresearch\u201d loans, usually for ten years and up to US$1 million a year<\/a>, with any cub born abroad remaining Chinese property. The rules changed, but the loans still follow Beijing\u2019s interests. University of Oxford researchers<\/a> found that loans after 2008 often coincided with trade deals. Malaysia received Xing Xing and Liang Liang in 2014<\/a> to mark 40 years of ties. And as relations with Washington soured, its pandas flew home in November 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n China set up its first panda reserves and banned hunting in the early 1960s<\/a>. When a mass die-off of bamboo happened<\/a> in 2005 and pandas starved, rescuers brought many into captivity. The Chengdu base opened in 1987 with six rescued wild pandas<\/a>. <\/p>\n A national panda programme followed in 1993. Today there are 67 reserves<\/a> and a Giant Panda National Park<\/a>. Wild numbers rose from 1,114 in the mid-1980s to 1,864 by 2014<\/a>, and in 2016 pandas were moved off the endangered list<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Chengdu base<\/a>, a tourist magnet, breeds pandas for display and diplomacy. Releasing them is the job of a separate state body, the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda<\/a> (CCRC). Its scientists say releases are replenishing fragile wild populations<\/a>. they claim that this makes every zoo panda, including those lent abroad, a lifeline for wild ones. Some are sceptical about this claim.<\/p>\n The CCRC began moving pandas to the wild in 2003<\/a>. Its first, Xiang Xiang, was found dead<\/a> within a year. Of the dozen released since then, ten have survived<\/a>, while more than 700 remain in captivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n The only permanently released panda known to have had a cub, Luxin, was born wild<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since 2017, previously captive females moved to the forest temporarily to mate with wild males, then returned to captivity, have produced 14 cubs, 12 of them surviving<\/a>. <\/p>\n Chinese scientists say the pandemic slowed its rewilding project<\/a>, but its lack of success has drawn criticism from those who believe it should have had more emphasis and investment.<\/p>\nFrom gifts to rentals<\/h2>\n
A conservation story<\/h2>\n
Two decades of releases<\/h2>\n
Bears for summits<\/h2>\n
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