Are Pandas Just Peace Treaties?
Just as Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination sparked World War I and falling U.S. house prices and borrowers unable to pay their loans caused the 2008 financial crisis, the world has founded itself on top of another political disaster that’s edging the cold frost between China and the United States: the pandas are on the run.
As far back as the Tang Dynasty, China has been giving out their native pandas as gifts to other countries as a diplomatic way of strengthening relations. This was first noted when Empress Wu Zeitan gifted two bears — now thought to be pandas — to Japan. But in the 1940s, this diplomatic tool took on a whole other meaning as China became the People’s Republic after decades of war. Stitching the country back together after an almost two-decades-long civil war and the Second Sino-Japanese War, they focused on using panda diplomacy to strengthen ties with their allies, and the United States was no exception.
After the former first lady, Pat Nixon, commented to Zhou Enlai, Former Premier of the People's Republic of China, about how the pandas on his tin can were awfully cute, Zhou responded, “I’ll give you some.” And since 1972, we have had pandas in the National Zoo in Washington as a gift from China.
That gift eventually turned into a loan in 1984 after China changed the rule so that the pandas could be loaned out for ten years, with time extended if needed. Recognizing a valuable resource in an always economically fraught world and far less in need of cultivating relationships than they were forty years earlier, the gift quickly became a decade-long loan. The receiving country pays an annual fee of one million dollars for each panda alongside the rule that any panda cubs born abroad are sent back before their fourth birthday. And after pandas became the symbol of peaceful, lovable animals, countries were clamoring to sign this loan.
So that is what the States did. For over fifty years, the loan has been extended so our most adorable animals can remain in zoos. The National Zoo even created the Panda Cam, where you can watch the three giant pandas (named Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, and Xiao Qi Ji) spend their days even if you are miles away from the zoo. When Mei Xiang gave birth to a pair of cubs in 2015, 868,000 people visited the site to witness the event. And since Xiao Qi Ji’s birth in 2020, more than 1.5 million people have visited the site to watch him grow. The adoration these cuddly creatures hold among U.S. citizens is undeniable.
But the most recent lease is coming to an end and for the first time in fifty years, there is no renewal in sight for the pandas to remain in place for another decade. With heightening tensions between the two governments over a multitude of hot-button issues, such as the social impact of COVID and the introduction of the Promoting Animal Naturalization and Democracy Act — aptly shortened to PANDA — that spoke against panda leases and encouraged the U.S. to have its own panda breeding program, it’s no wonder any renewal for the panda lease is being denied.
The pandas are on the run, leaving not only the National Zoo but other zoos in the United States too. The pandas in the San Diego Zoo left in 2019, and those in the Memphis Zoo left in early 2023. After the pandas in the National Zoo leave, there will be no more pandas — except the ones in the Atlanta Zoo, but their lease expires next year. It’s a bleak perspective to have that once the pandas leave, they aren’t coming back for a long while. But it seems to be the most realistic path as tensions worsen, freezing over the strategic friendship that first brought the pandas here fifty years ago.
But there is a glimmer of hope as the Biden administration and the Chinese government work to better relationships between the two countries. Maybe in another fifty years, the adored pandas will grace our zoos once again.
Strike Out,
Rameen Naviwala
Boca Raton
Rameen Naviwala is a content writer for Strike Magazine Boca. A water sign that enjoys rom-coms and reading melodramatic novels, she spends most of her time with headphones on and scribbling down whatever thought comes to mind. You can reach her at rameen.naviwala@outlook.com.
