{"id":184913,"date":"2025-12-15T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/184913\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:13:07","slug":"japans-only-two-pandas-to-be-sent-back-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/184913\/","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":184914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[607,1759,111,139,69,25298,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-184913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-pandas","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}