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China has announced that it will send two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta in the US as their latest efforts of panda diplomacy, less than a month before President Trump's planned visit.
On Friday, April 24, the China Wildlife Conservation Association said in a statement that male panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang, from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, will begin a decade-long conservation cooperation under an agreement signed with the zoo last year.
While the departure date for the pandas was not revealed, the association said that the US was actively carrying out facility upgrades, among other preparation work, to create a more comfortable and safer environment for the pair.
In the meantime, Chinese experts were providing technical guidance on the upgrades.
The announcement came weeks ahead of Trump's planned visit to China in mid-May, during which he is expected to discuss various issues, including trade, with President Xi Jinping.
Zoo Atlanta said in a statement Thursday that it was delighted and honoured to be trusted as stewards of the pandas and to partner with the association.
"We can't wait to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our members, guests, city, and community back to the wonder and joy of giant pandas," the zoo’s president, Raymond B. King, said.
During an earlier giant panda agreement between the zoo and China that concluded in 2024, pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang gave birth to seven bears.
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The parents and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, where the rest of their offspring reside.
China's giant panda loan programme has long been known as a tool of Beijing's soft-power diplomacy, but its conservation significance could have been an important reason Beijing is renewing its cooperation with US zoos at a time of otherwise sour relations.
The association said Friday that the new round of cooperation will help China and the US to achieve more results in areas such as disease prevention.
Giant pandas have been a symbol of US-China friendship since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972.
