Furry, cuddly, and black and white: How China turned pandas into diplomatic envoys

Ping Ping and Fu Shuang flew into Atlanta on September 27 aboard a dedicated Boeing 777 dubbed the ‘FedEx Panda Express’, after a journey of about 16 hours from Chengdu. China has sent the two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta for a 10-year stay, nearly two years after the city returned its previous pandas to China.

The flight came days after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the move during his visit to the US. Xi called the giant panda an “envoy of friendship” between the Chinese and American people. The timing has drawn attention because the pandas come after a period of strained US-China relations, with the two countries still negotiating over trade, technology and other disputes.

The practice is known as panda diplomacy, and it has made the animals a recognisable part of China’s diplomatic outreach.

Under the loan system, China keeps ownership of the animals. Host zoos contribute financially to conservation and generally pay substantial annual fees, which can run to around $1 million a year for a pair, on top of the considerable cost of housing, feeding and caring for them. Cubs born abroad generally remain Chinese property and are eventually sent to China. The agreements can also involve cooperation on breeding, research and conservation, and they build long-term institutional links between Chinese and foreign scientists, veterinarians and conservation organisations.

Zoo Atlanta’s current agreement, an International Cooperative Research Agreement on Giant Panda Conservation, is with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

The practice gained particular significance in the US after President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China, after which Beijing sent two pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, to the National Zoo in Washington.

The pair were hugely popular with Americans, drawing more than 1 million visitors in their first year, according to CNBC.

The episode established pandas as a symbol of the thaw in US-China relations. China later used pandas in its relations with several other countries, including Japan, Australia, France, Canada, Malaysia and South Korea.

The loan system also gives each movement of pandas potential diplomatic weight. A country that receives pandas, renews an agreement or gets a new pair can draw attention to its ties with China, and a return can attract similar scrutiny.

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The US has examples too. In 2010, two US-born cubs were sent to China shortly after Chinese officials warned then-President Barack Obama against meeting the Dalai Lama. More recently, several pandas left the US in 2023 and 2024, before new pairs reached the San Diego Zoo and Washington’s National Zoo later in 2024.

This pattern has led researchers and observers to describe pandas as a kind of diplomatic barometer. The evidence, however, does not establish that panda transfers themselves cause relations to improve or deteriorate.

Czeslaw Tubilewicz of the University of Adelaide, quoted by Time, said the Atlanta pandas also carry significance because of Georgia’s historically consistent economic engagement with China, even as many other Republican-led southern states adopted a more negative approach towards Beijing. Tubilewicz said Georgia had continued its economic engagement with China while other southern states became more negative towards Beijing, and suggested the choice of Atlanta reflected that relationship. He described Xi’s move as an attempt to “kill two birds with two pandas”.

Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told Mint that panda diplomacy conveys “a message of friendship and goodwill from China”. Han Shen Lin, China country director at The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm, said the gesture shows that people-to-people engagement can stay visible even amid intense competition.

Ja Ian Chong of the National University of Singapore argued that the pandas’ traditionally “soft, friendly, and cuddly” image may have less impact today, because China’s geopolitical actions are more visible to Americans. Tubilewicz similarly cautioned that pandas cannot overcome disagreements over national security or wider strategic interests.

Nonetheless, some research suggests pandas can still shape perceptions.

A 2022 University of Connecticut study found that US students who watched panda videos not sourced from the government were more likely to hold positive attitudes towards Chinese culture and, in turn, Chinese people.

But a 2026 survey by NORC at the University of Chicago found that only 28% of US adults said sending pandas to American zoos would improve their view of China. Larger shares cited substantive measures instead, such as Chinese cooperation on fentanyl precursors and easing trade restrictions.

Yu Tao of the University of Western Australia argued that affection for pandas does not automatically translate into support for Chinese government policies. Their more realistic role, he argued, is to create public goodwill and give people something positive to preserve in a relationship otherwise marked by disputes. He made the comments to Time in an article published on September 25, 2026.

Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are a visible sign that, despite major disagreements, the US and China can continue to cooperate in specific areas such as conservation, science and people-to-people exchanges.

Also read: From pandas to precious stones: The hidden language of gift diplomacy

Ping Ping, the male, was born in March 2020, and Fu Shuang, the female, in October 2020.

For Zoo Atlanta, the pair bring back a much-loved species, and their stay extends the zoo’s conservation partnership with China.