China Will Send Giant Pandas To Atlanta Again

BEIJING — Atlanta will person elephantine pandas again.

China announced it will nonstop 2 elephantine pandas to Zoo Atlanta successful Beijing’s latest panda diplomacy effort, contempt tensions pinch Washington, little than a period earlier a much-anticipated sojourn by President Trump to Beijing.

The China Wildlife Conservation Assn. said successful a connection that antheral panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang, from nan Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding, will footwear disconnected a decade-long conservation business nether an statement it signed pinch nan zoo past year.

The relation did not specify nan pandas’ departure day but said nan U.S. broadside was upgrading facilities, among different mentation work, to create a much comfortable and safer situation for nan pair. Chinese experts provided method guidance connected nan upgrades, it said.

The announcement came weeks up of Trump’s planned sojourn to China successful mid-May, during which he is expected to talk various issues, including trade, pinch his counterpart, President Xi Jinping.

Zoo Atlanta said it was delighted and honored to beryllium trusted arsenic steward of nan pandas and to partner pinch nan association.

“We can’t hold to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to invited our members, guests, city, and organization backmost to nan wonderment and joyousness of elephantine pandas,” nan zoo’s president, Raymond B. King, said successful a statement.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, told reporters that nan caller information of practice connected conservation would thief amended nan wellness and well-being of nan elephantine pandas, beforehand world biodiversity protection and fortify nan relationship betwixt nan Chinese and American people.

During an earlier elephantine panda statement betwixt nan zoo and China that concluded successful 2024, pandas Lun Lun and nan Yang gave commencement to 7 bears, nan zoo said. Lun Lun and nan Yang and their 2 youngest offspring near Atlanta for China successful October 2024, wherever nan remainder of their offspring reside, it said.

Giant pandas person been a awesome of nan U.S.-China relationship ever since Beijing gave a brace of pandas to nan National Zoo successful Washington successful 1972, and China has agelong utilized its elephantine panda indebtedness programme arsenic a instrumentality of Beijing’s soft powerfulness diplomacy worldwide.

Beijing could besides beryllium renewing its practice pinch U.S. zoos astatine a clip of different sour relations successful a bid to boost conservation efforts for nan mammals.

The relation said Friday that nan caller information of practice will thief China and nan U.S. beforehand successful areas ranging from illness prevention and curen to technological exchanges.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a starring world group, took pandas disconnected its endangered database successful 2016 and classified them arsenic “vulnerable” instead.

In 2024, nan National Zoo successful Washington and nan San Diego Zoo besides received pandas from China.