The panda house at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo is not due to open for several hours, but visitors are already milling around its entrance, pausing to pose for photographs in front of murals of the facility\u2019s most beloved residents. A short walk away the gift shop is doing a roaring trade in themed souvenirs \u2013 from cuddly toys and stationery to T-shirts and biscuits.<\/p>\n
The visitors are here to say goodbye to Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei. Early next week, the twin pandas, born at the zoo in 2021 but technically on loan from China<\/a>, will be flown out of Tokyo\u2019s Narita airport to China, where they will undergo quarantine and be reunited with their sister, Xiang Xiang, at a conservation<\/a> and research centre in Sichuan province.<\/p>\n Their departure will not only leave legions of Japanese admirers bereft; it is also symptomatic of a dramatic deterioration<\/a> in relations between China and their host country.<\/p>\n Japan<\/a> will be without a giant panda for the first time since 1972, when Tokyo and Beijing normalised diplomatic ties almost three decades after the end of the second world war.<\/p>\n Since then, China has loaned more than 30 pandas \u2013 an endangered species<\/a> \u2013 to zoos in Japan, where they have endeared themselves to countless animal lovers and caused anguish on their return.<\/p>\n Panda fans walking past merchandise at the Panda House at Tokyo\u2019s Ueno Zoo. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The panda project has survived changes in Chinese leadership, the rise of hawkish leaders<\/a> in Japan, and even an unresolved territorial dispute over the Senkakus<\/a>, uninhabited islands in the East China sea that are administered by Japan but claimed by China, where they are known as the Diaoyu.<\/p>\n But \u201cpanda diplomacy\u201d has met its match in the future of Taiwan.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s conservative prime minister, Sanae Takaichi<\/a>, has refused to back down on a suggestion she could deploy the self-defence forces<\/a> in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which she has said poses an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to Japan.<\/p>\n The reportedly unscripted remarks, made before a parliamentary committee in November, drew a furious response from China<\/a>, which accused Takaichi of interfering in its internal affairs.<\/p>\n Chinese tourism to Japan has plummeted<\/a> since Beijing urged its citizens not to travel to the country, while cultural exchanges and other events aimed at fostering closer ties have been cancelled or postponed. Now those tensions have seeped into the animal world.<\/p>\n Despite requests for replacements from the Tokyo metropolitan government, Chinese authorities have said there are no plans to send pandas to take up residence at Ueno Zoo.<\/p>\n \u201cIf tensions between Japan<\/a> and China persist, China may refrain from new loans, and pandas may no longer be seen in Japan,\u201d the Beijing Daily, a state-controlled newspaper, quoted a Chinese expert as saying recently.<\/p>\n Members of the public lucky enough to have secured tickets to view the pair via a hugely oversubscribed online lottery voiced frustration that the zoo\u2019s long relationship with pandas appears to be over \u2013 at least for the time being.<\/p>\n Panda souvenirs at the Panda House at Ueno Zoo. Photograph: Justin McCurry\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a shame this is the last time I\u2019ll be able to see them,\u201d said one woman who had travelled from nearby Saitama prefecture. \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re being picked on by the Chinese government.\u201d<\/p>\n A thaw in relations that could lead to a resumption of panda diplomacy appears unlikely while Beijing and Tokyo are locked in a bitter row over the future of Taiwan<\/a> \u2013 a self-governing democracy that China regards as a renegade province that will eventually be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.<\/p>\n \u201cGiant pandas function mainly as symbols of Sino-Japanese friendship rather than as drivers of bilateral relations,\u201d said Prof Rumi Aoyama, an expert in Japan-China relations at Waseda University in Tokyo.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir presence here doesn\u2019t in itself advance ties, and nor does their return to China undermine them. Instead, they serve as indicators of the broader state of relations between the two countries.\u201d<\/p>\n The panda\u2019s purely symbolic role will do little to console Japan\u2019s legions of panda lovers. More than 7.6 million people flocked to Ueno when Kang Kang and Lan Lan, the first giant pandas to be loaned by China, arrived 50 years ago. Ueno zookeepers were visibly upset after Ling Ling, a male panda that had lived there since 1992, died in April 2008.<\/p>\n The prospects for a resumption in panda loans \u2013 made under the Washington Convention on the trade in endangered species \u2013 grew weaker after Takaichi this week called a snap general election<\/a> for next month.<\/p>\n