{"id":346901,"date":"2025-12-15T14:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346901\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:49:07","slug":"japans-only-two-pandas-to-be-sent-back-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346901\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan’s only two pandas to be sent back to China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tokyo’s regional government has been asking for the immensely popular mammals to remain at the zoo – where they attract huge crowds – but China did not agree, according to the Nikkei business daily.<\/p>\n

In September last year, animal lovers in Tokyo bid farewell to the parents of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao who returned home.<\/p>\n

Just before they left, thousands of tearful fans came out to catch a final glimpse and take photographs of the beloved bears.<\/p>\n

The Asahi Shimbun reported that Tokyo is seeking the loan of a new pair, although their arrival before the return of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao is seen as unlikely.<\/p>\n

Ties between Asia’s two largest economies are fast deteriorating after Japan’s conservative new premier Sanae Takaichi hinted that Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.<\/p>\n

Japan’s top government spokesman Minoru Kihara said pandas have helped ties with China.<\/p>\n

“Exchanges through pandas have contributed to improving the feelings between the people of Japan and China. We hope such exchanges will continue,” Kihara told a regular press briefing.<\/p>\n

He said that “several local governments and zoos have expressed interest in receiving pandas on loan”, but did not state whether the national government was asking China for new animals.<\/p>\n

Ueno Zoo has long been the beneficiary of panda diplomacy, having cooperated with facilities in China and the United States to successfully breed giant pandas.<\/p>\n

Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao were delivered in 2021 by their mother Shin Shin, who arrived in 2011 and was returned to China last year.<\/p>\n

Breeding pandas in a zoo environment is fiendishly tricky due to their difficulties mating, false pregnancies and high mortality rates of newborn cubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tokyo’s regional government has been asking for the immensely popular mammals to remain at the zoo – where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,95,2454,78389,66,323],"class_list":["post-346901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-japan","tag-pandas","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}