{"id":445453,"date":"2026-01-29T16:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445453\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:03:11","slug":"japan-born-pandas-xiao-xiao-and-lei-lei-arrive-in-china-as-bilateral-ties-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445453\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan-born pandas Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei arrive in China as bilateral ties freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ya Ya, on loan to the US for 20 years, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/world\/what-does-departure-pandas-america-mean-us-china-relations-3909471\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">was returned to China in April 2023<\/a> after a suspected Chinese spy balloon floated over the US.<\/p>\n<p>The following year, as Beijing and Washington increased engagement, China \u200cpromised to send two younger pandas to Washington in what China&#8217;s ambassador said was a &#8220;very good sign&#8221; for bilateral relations.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, China&#8217;s Premier Li Qiang offered pandas to Australia as a goodwill gesture in 2024 as relations warmed following a trade spat that stretched back to 2020.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea could be the next test ground for China&#8217;s panda diplomacy.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, agreed during a January summit to start panda talks, Yonhap News Agency reported, as Lee called for a full restoration of South Korea-China relations in his first visit to Beijing as president.<\/p>\n<p>South Koreans in April 2024 bid a tearful farewell to Fu Bao, the first giant panda \u200cborn in the country, although it remains \u200chome to four other Chinese pandas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ya Ya, on loan to the US for 20 years, was returned to China in April 2023 after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,512,941,52317,128,338],"class_list":["post-445453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-china","tag-japan","tag-panda","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}