Reuters
source: Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping has news for the people of Atlanta: The pandas are coming.
Two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, will arrive at Zoo Atlanta “in a few days,” Xi announced at the start of his state visit to the United States on Thursday.
“The giant panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans,” he said at a White House ceremony. “Here, I have a piece of good news.”
A Zoo Atlanta representative said the facility would not share information about Ping Ping and Fu Shuang’s planned arrival date and declined to comment further. The zoo, which previously housed pandas from 1999 to 2024, announced an agreement in April with the China Wildlife Conservation Association to host the two bears.
China closely controls the exhibition of pandas, one of its prized national symbols. The country claims ownership of all the world’s bears and leases them to international zoos in what’s been dubbed “panda diplomacy.”
The tradition began in 1957 when Mao Zedong gifted panda Ping Ping to the Soviet Union. Beijing gifted two pandas to the United States in 1972 as the countries began dialogue toward normalizing relations.
