Two giant pandas from China arrive in US capital | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

Two giant pandas on loan from China have arrived at a zoo in the US capital of Washington. Some US media outlets have described it as a renewal of China’s “panda diplomacy.”

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute says the male and female pandas, Bao Li and Qing Bao, arrived at the facility on Tuesday.

The zoo says they left China’s Sichuan Province on a chartered flight named “Panda Express.”

The animals will be quarantined before making their public debut on January 24, 2025.

Panda loans to the zoo began after then US President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972. They were considered a symbol of friendly US-China relations for over 50 years.

But there were no pandas at the zoo for nearly a year since a pair and their cub were returned to China in 2023.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his visit to San Francisco in November last year, indicated that his country would consider sending pandas to the United States again.

CNN says, “China’s renewed panda diplomacy with the US is a rare bright spot in the fraught relations between the world’s two superpower rivals, which have been marred by tensions over trade, technology, geopolitics and more.”