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Vanessa Cai

For more than half a century, giant pandas have helped serve as ambassadors for China around the world, but their time in Japan appears to be drawing to a close with the last two in the country set to return next month.
Hopes of receiving new ones soon appear dim given the tensions between the two countries.
Tokyo’s metropolitan government has reportedly been in talks with China about receiving new pandas, but there is no sign of agreement in the wake of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan last month.
On Monday, the city’s authorities said they would return four-year-old twins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, who were born at Ueno Zoo but were always destined to be returned to China.
The announcement comes after four pandas kept at a wildlife park in central Japan were returned to China in June.
Pandas have been used by China as a long-standing symbol of friendship with other countries. The tradition of panda diplomacy may date back to the Tang dynasty (618-907), when two “white bears” – generally believed to be giant pandas – were sent to Japan.
The practice was revived in the 1950s, then in 1972 China sent two of the animals to Tokyo to mark the normalisation of diplomatic relations following World War II.
Since then, as relations thawed, more pandas followed. At one point, Japan was home to nine of the animals, more than any other country.


Dylan Loh, an associate professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University who specialises in China’s foreign policy, said the current situation reflected Beijing’s wider pressure on Tokyo.
Since Takaichi said that an attack on Taiwan might trigger military intervention from Japan, Beijing’s ban on seafood exports has been restored, Chinese visitors have been warned against travel to the country, film releases have been delayed and performances by Japanese artists cancelled.
“The return of the pandas is just one instance out of the series of other kinds of diplomatic, economic and military measures that China has enacted against Japan,” Loh said.
“There has been some attempt to recast and walk back on the comments in Tokyo but these do not go far enough in the eyes of Beijing and the pressure will likely remain for the short term, at least.”
However, he said: “I think there is a ceiling in terms of how far China wishes to pressure Japan and we are at or near the ceiling but the diplomatic pressure will not let up.”
­Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and has never ruled out the use of force to reunify it with the mainland. Japan, like most countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but is opposed to any attempt to take the island by force.
Previous China-Japan rows have also affected panda exchanges between the two countries.

In 2012, officials in the city of Sendai had hoped to receive a pair of giant pandas to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, but China cancelled the plans amid a dispute over the Diaoyu Islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands.
Disputes between China and the United States in recent years have also taken their toll on America’s panda loans.
At one point it appeared the country was destined to become a panda-free zone once its last four resident pandas, housed in Atlanta’s zoo, returned to China last year.
But panda diplomacy resumed and two of the animals, named Bao Li and Qing Bao, were sent to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo in Washington for a 10-year loan in October, the same month that the Atlanta-based animals left.


Earlier this month, China announced an agreement to send a pair of pandas to France in 2027 as part of a decade-long loan finalised during French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent trip to China.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on Monday that the Japanese people loved pandas.
“Exchanges through pandas have contributed to improving the public sentiment between Japan and China, and we hope the relationship will continue,” Kihara added.


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Visitors take pictures of giant panda Xiao Xiao at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. Photo: EPA

Xiao Xiao’s twin Lei Lei will also be returned to China next month: AFP

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A 50-year tradition of panda diplomacy appears to be reaching its end with the last pair set to leave amid heightened diplomatic tensions


A 50-year tradition of panda diplomacy appears to be reaching its end with the last pair set to leave amid heightened diplomatic tensions.


Bearly any time left for Japan’s panda lovers? Row with China threatens loan programme

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A 50-year tradition of panda diplomacy appears to be reaching its end with the last pair set to leave amid heightened diplomatic tensions

A 50-year tradition of panda diplomacy appears to be reaching its end with the last pair set to leave amid heightened diplomatic tensions