BEIJING (AP) \u2014 Atlanta will have giant pandas again.<\/p>\n
China on Friday announced it will send two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta in the U.S.<\/a> in Beijing\u2019s latest efforts of panda diplomacy<\/a> despite tensions with Washington, less than a month before a much-anticipated visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, will kick off a decade-long conservation partnership under an agreement it signed with the zoo last year.<\/p>\n The association did not specify the pandas\u2019 departure date but said the U.S. side was carrying out facility upgrades, among other preparation work, to create a more comfortable and safer environment for the pair. Chinese experts provided technical guidance on the upgrades, it said. <\/p>\n The announcement came weeks ahead of Trump\u2019s planned visit to China in mid-May, during which he is expected to discuss various issues, including trade, with his counterpart, President Xi Jinping. <\/p>\n Zoo Atlanta said Thursday that it was delighted and honored to be trusted as stewards of the pandas and to partner with the association. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t 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,\u201d the zoo\u2019s president, Raymond B. King, said in a statement.<\/p>\n China\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that the new round of cooperation on conservation would help improve the health and well-being of the giant pandas, advance global biodiversity protection and strengthen the friendship between the Chinese and American people. <\/p>\n 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, the zoo said. Lun Lun and Yang Yang and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, where the rest of their offspring reside, it said. <\/p>\n Giant pandas have been a symbol of the U.S.-China friendship ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972, and China has long used its giant panda loan program as a tool of Beijing\u2019s soft power diplomacy worldwide.<\/p>\n Beijing could also be renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos at a time of otherwise sour relations in a bid to boost conservation efforts for the mammals.<\/p>\n The association said Friday that the new round of cooperation will help China and the U.S. to advance in areas ranging from disease prevention and treatment to scientific exchanges. <\/p>\n The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a leading international group, took pandas off its endangered list<\/a> in 2016 and classified them as \u201cvulnerable\u201d instead. <\/p>\n In 2024, the National Zoo<\/a> in Washington and the San Diego Zoo<\/a> also received pandas from China. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING (AP) \u2014 Atlanta will have giant pandas again. China on Friday announced it will send two giant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,1204,5786,550,144,3327,3505,12,9092,793,681,67938,149,111,262511,79,201,965,6132],"class_list":{"0":"post-603511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-beijing","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-china-government","14":"tag-district-of-columbia","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-ga-state-wire","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-georgia","19":"tag-giant-pandas","20":"tag-lifestyle","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-raymond-b-king","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-wildlife","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-xi-jinping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}